


Charity Case

by DarthFucamus



Category: Blade (Movie Series)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood Drinking, Captivity, Character Development, Consent, Consentacles, Creepy Fluff, Cuddles, Emotional Baggage, Europe, F/M, Fear, Feelings, Flirting, Graphic Violence, Growling, Hair Pulling, Heart Eating, Horror, Human/Monster Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Monster Boyfriend, Monster sex, Moral Ambiguity, Oral Sex, Original Character(s), Peril, Plot With Porn, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Revenge, Rimming, Romance, Shower Sex, Snarling, Vampires, blowjob, safe sex, soft D/s, soft S/m, throat maw, tossing on the bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2018-11-05 03:53:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 102,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11005437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthFucamus/pseuds/DarthFucamus
Summary: This takes place before the events of Blade II.Anna is an American expat working and living alone in Prague. When she encounters a group of thugs harassing a homeless man in the subway, she is compelled by her conscience, against her better judgment, to intervene.Warnings for explicit sex, graphic violence, and disturbing themesTags will be updated as the story progresses.





	1. 8:55 PM, Wednesday

**8:55 PM, Wednesday**

Outside the barred windows of the front office, sluggish traffic chugged endlessly by. Anna tapped her pencil against the top of the desk with one eye on the clock. Only five minutes left of another unfruitful day, but she’d stay until the very end. Lanya hadn’t even bothered to come in. There wasn’t much point anymore.

Occasionally, the people too poor to own cars passed along the sidewalk, headed toward the subway station at the corner. Their figures became briefly visible as they walked beneath the flickering bluish light of the streetlamp outside the front door before returning to silhouettes against the glow of brake and headlights.

None of them spared a single glance to the little hole-in-the-wall charity clinic. Anna couldn’t totally blame them. What was a measly $20 USD for a pint of blood if it meant being put in a government database in central Prague? No one wanted that kind of vulnerability, especially the way things had been lately. With the rash of violent crimes against the poor and homeless, and the indifference of the police, a paranoia and disheartened malaise seemed to have dampened the generosity of the locals. It was worse now that there was a shortage.

So, no one donated.

There was always hope, though. She refused to believe that there was no humanity left. She’d been urging Dimitri, the director of this branch, to pay more by volume, but funds were tight as it was.

Still, despite the lack of interest, she would always stay until exactly 9 o’clock, just in case someone had a last-minute change of heart. Even in this decrepit neighborhood, surely someone was willing to look past themselves and think of those less fortunate, dying in the streets as the nights grew colder and darker.

Her spirit wasn’t tireless, though. With one minute left to go, Anna could only think of her shift the next day with a measure of dread. More of the same, probably.

A man passing by the front window slowed and stopped, and Anna fiddled with the tunnel plug in her earlobe nervously. The steady _tap tap tap_ of the pencil grew louder, but she didn’t really notice. As always, there was the uncertainty when people took notice of the clinic this late. She couldn’t be sure if it was a potential donor, or some desperate criminal thinking to rob the place. She really didn’t want to die for what little was in the padlocked cash box.

Her fears subsided when he just kept walking. She sighed in mingled relief and guilt. She tried her best not to judge people by appearances, but she maintained a healthy sense of caution. There was the added risk of an otherwise peaceful person becoming violent in desperate times, after all other choices were taken from them.

She paid attention to the news. Every day, when Anna came to work, she was taking her own life in her hands. Every day, she did it anyway.

9:02. She tidied up the desk, and logged out of the office computer, already thinking of the cup of tea she’d fix herself before bed. First, she’d have to feed Mariuska. The fat, spoiled Persian wouldn’t give her a moment’s peace until she got her canned chicken and rice.

Anna donned her many layers and changed into her snow boots.

Honking cars, and distant clashing music greeted her as soon as she opened the door. A passing pair of old women in thick head scarves chattered, leaving their breaths trailing behind them before the vapor dispersed in the breeze.

She locked the door, and then pulled shut the security gate and locked that too. With her hood up to ward off the frosty air, she pulled a cigarette out of the near-empty pack in the back pocket of her jeans, and lit it behind the shield of her cupped hand. Savoring the first lungful of smoke, she watched the cars stop and go on the road in front of her.

A mustachioed man in a red, 80s-style sports car said something about the mother of the woman in the car ahead of him. She made a rude gesture out her window. It was almost considerate, how they exposed the warm interior of their cars to the cold, just so they could more directly communicate their opinions of one another.

Drivers here were so vocal about everything. At first, used to the apologetic and genial traffic back home in Minneapolis, the sometimes-abrasive Czechian mannerisms had unnerved her. She’d since grown used to them, though, even to the point of appreciating how no one bothered to dance around their feelings here.

She took a long drag and let it seep out of her nose, eyeing the man hawking his CDs to pedestrians across the street.

Anna ground the depleted stub of her cigarette against the brick wall and tossed it into a garbage can. Then she tugged up her half-face balaclava so that only her kohl-smudged eyes were exposed to the late autumn evening. The skeletal grin printed on the half-mask was usually enough to deter any would-be aggressors, while her bulky down winter coat hid her body shape.

She might have been willing to assume the best of people, but she wasn’t reckless. She also hadn’t been robbed yet, so she must have been doing something right.

After checking the time, she headed toward the underground metro station. Smells of garbage, car exhaust, and an undercurrent of cooking street food was a pungent reminder that the city was overflowing with life. It was far from paradise, but Anna had grown to love it and the people living there.

Wind whistled behind her past the entrance to the stairs down.

She tossed a few dollars into the open guitar case of a busker camped past the turnstiles, and the thin young woman sang her thanks, blending the words with the old Slavic folk song seamlessly. After that, Anna enjoyed the music guilt-free as she waited on the platform for the Eastbound line.

It was busy this time of night. Some were coming home like her, from a long work day, while others were just beginning theirs. A few people lingered on the benches lining the dirty concrete wall toward the back. More than one of them looked like they might not have anywhere else to go. Conversation was a formless wash, echoing endlessly in the cavernous underground station beneath the squeal of train cars braking on the other side. People filed in, others filed out, a constant flow. It would trickle to a stop before long, and Anna let her mind wander.

Someone bumped into her as they went by and she spared passing notice to the group of young men, laughing and drinking from paper bags. The one that had jostled her glanced at her briefly over his shoulder before he continued on. Most other people just got out of their way. She fingered the phone in her pocket absently as she resumed waiting.

After 20 minutes or so, a weary female voice came over the speakers with a disappointing announcement in Czech. Anna understood the subject well enough, even if she didn’t quite get every word. Her train was going to be late, the voice said, and the time of arrival was delayed indefinitely.

The people standing around her that were waiting for the same train, groaned. Some filtered back toward the street or to other lines, unwilling to wait. Anna didn’t really have a choice, she wasn't going to walk the whole way home by herself. Not at night.

She tugged her coat closer around herself, chill even here where she could hear the buzzing of electric coil heaters spaced out with the concrete columns. Gradually the sounds of life and human activity petered out.

By 9:45, the busker had called it a night, leaving Anna without the distraction of music.

The group of young men, loud and rude, had decided to stay behind and wait like she was. They were standing a few columns down the tunnel-end of the platform, their slurred voices ringing loud in the empty space. If she ignored them, chances were that they’d leave her alone. She didn’t show any outward interest in them, but she paid close attention to them all the same.

She was starting to consider calling a taxi by 10:07, even though their rates amounted to robbery. It was even worse when she tried to communicate with them in her broken Czech; they always assumed she was a tourist or some other foreigner, too stupid to know the value of things. She was getting better at arguing with them and haggling, though, and was starting to learn some of the more important words and phrases.

 _‘To je příliš mnoho peněz,’_ or, that is too much money. ‘ _Včera jsem se nenarodil,’_ or, I wasn’t born yesterday. She also knew a few curse words, but she never used them.

The group was getting louder, laughing now, and breaking glass. Anna stole a look around the side of her hood and her heart sank. They were harassing a homeless man sitting on a bench by the stairs to the lower levels. There were three of them, and one of him. It seemed like they were trying to make him leave. She turned away, staring over the rails to the far wall, tense.

After a moment, she pulled out her phone subtly and dialed the police.

She was placed on hold before she could say anything.

Anna chewed her lip, listening to the crackling silence on the other end of the line as the aggressive behavior and words grew louder and harder to ignore. She eyed them. The vagrant on the bench dodged out of the way of a thrown beer bottle, his hands thrown up pleadingly. The bottle smashed in the wall next to him, showering him in shattered glass and beer.

Anna’s eyes darted to the stairwell to the street level, considering that the wisest thing to do for her own wellbeing was to leave as quickly as possible. Her teeth tore at the soft skin around her piercing until it stung and tasted like metal. Someone needed to stop this, and the fact was, there _was_ no one else.

She started walking over there.

After only a few strides, a tall man wearing the style of track suits popular with all the slavic criminal low-lifes, noticed her and alerted his friends. Beneath her puffy black coat, Anna was shaking. She hoped that none of them could see it.

‘Hey buddy,’ a shorter guy with a tattooed face and a silver grill said, speaking the Czech with a distinct Polish accent. ‘You want to start something?’

Anna still had the phone up to her ear with her right hand, praying that they’d take her off hold any second.

She informed them, in Czech and in the strongest voice she could manage, that she was currently calling the police. Of course, her gender was now no longer a mystery. They laughed. One of them said something coarse that she understood well enough as a rape threat. Already, with that.

The operator clicked on and asked the emergency.

“There’s a group of men here trying to hurt someone,” she said loudly enough for the men to hear. In her left pocket, she fingered the canister with her gloved hand. She gave the address when prompted, but had to repeat the numbers in Czech before the woman understood her.

The tall one in the track suit peeled off and was coming toward her in the way dangerous men do when they’re picking a fight they know they’ll win. His cocky gait and posture told her that he was no lightweight, and he was pulling a mask up around his face, a clear indication that he meant to do harm. She saw a flash of metal jammed into the waist of the pants. The grip of a handgun.

According to the dispatcher, the police would be on their way when they had a chance, but she wasn’t allowed to stay on the line. So, she stood there with her phone held to her ear, pretending.

He strode forward, spitting vulgarities in Polish, words she didn’t understand even if she could guess their meaning well enough, clearly undeterred by her supposed direct line to the police.

She gave up on the phone and pulled the canister of capsaicin concentrate out of her pocket. She covered her face with her arm and depressed the lever, sending a stream of the potent fluid in the general direction of his mouth and eyes. The man doubled over, screaming and clawing at his face as it turned red. Now all of them were looking.

Anna was breathing hard, the mask damp against her nose and mouth, when she sprayed him again. His eyes were covered, but the pepper spray hit him in the mouth and he started retching, staggering. She backed away, watching to see if he’d go for that gun

At that moment, a shrill scream of brakes heralded the arrival of the train. The other two were laughing and jeering at their friend, no indication that they had the intention to retaliate for him, as they headed toward their car. The homeless man was forgotten. Anna backed behind the cover of a map sign, eyeing the last man, screaming epithets and empty threats as he made his drunken and half-blind way to the nearest door. The few people that had exited the train were trying not to stare as they made their way out of the station.

She watched the Eastbound train, the last one for the night, pull away with them inside, and then let herself breathe again. She leaned against the graffitied sign, hyperventilating.

She would need to email her dad and thank him for the pepper spray later. Anna turned to the vagrant as the few people left made their way to the exits or to the lower levels.

The man was slumped on the bench, his head down. Alive, but doing poorly from what she could tell. She made her way to him, listening all the while for the arrival of the police. She didn’t have too many expectations.

“Are you okay?” she asked him from a couple strides away. “Are you hurt?”

She tried again in Czech, but his hooded head stayed down.

It took her a moment to sort through the nagging feeling she’d been having as she got closer to him. She recognized him. It was the same guy that had passed by the window before she closed up for the night. He had the same brown fur duster over multiple layers of hoodie and jacket. His shoes were old and worn nearly through, gloved hands clutched around his middle. She could see now that he wouldn’t have posed a threat in his current state.

He coughed coarsely into his hand and pity tightened her heartstrings.

“Police are on their way, they’ll help you,” she said, softer. “ _Politsiya_ … are coming. Now.” She realized too late that she’d used the Russian word instead of the Czech. But even if he didn’t speak any English, she hoped a soothing tone would communicate the meaning well enough. A low, throaty sound came from him. Coughing, or… laughing.

“What makes you think that they can help me?” he asked in perfect English. She caught a flash of a pale jaw, marked by a raised vertical scar before it returned to the shadow of his hood. The scar had been perfectly straight, from the middle of his bottom lip to the underside of his chin.

It was now half past 10 and they would soon be the only people left in the station.

“Do you need a place to stay? There’s a shelter not too far from here. I can help you get there, if you want.”

He turned his head to look up at her and she saw him in the light for the first time. Dark, tired-looking eyes regarded her from an anemically pale face. The shadows around his eye sockets were deep-set, like they’d been there for a while. He looked like he could have used a good night’s sleep, or three.

He offered an ironic smile.

“You think I’m homeless?” he asked.

“I’m so sorry,” she gasped, mortified that she’d made such a mistake. “I really didn’t mean to offend you.”

With a good-natured chuckle, he pushed himself into a more upright sitting position. He covered his mouth with a gloved fist, though, when his laughter triggered a small coughing fit

“You didn’t,” he answered, his voice a bit hoarse. “I guess I am homeless. I just hadn’t thought about it that way.”

She caught herself looking at him with a sympathetic tilt to her head and a smile forming beneath her half-mask.

“Do you need help? Is there anyone I can call for you?”

He shook his head and his smile faded some when he met her eyes.

“You’ve already done enough. Don’t waste your energy, there’s nothing more you can do for me.” He stated this like a fact, not an invitation for pity. There was a kind of quiet pride to him that made it hard for her to just let go of the matter. After all, she’d stepped in for his sake once already, now she wanted to see it through.

“A hot meal couldn’t hurt, though, right?” she teased, thinking of the 24-hour convenience store a few blocks over, bearing the hilarious English name, ‘Okay Food.’ Maybe all he needed was a pick-me-up, a small gesture that might make him feel human again after being treated as less than. “Something warm in your stomach will help keep the cold away.”

By the way he looked at her, she knew she’d piqued his interest. She silently urged him to accept. If he didn’t fall victim to cruel people, like those drunks, the winter cold would claim him sure enough.

“Are you offering?” he asked with a hungry shine in his eyes that gratified her immensely.

“Yeah, it’s on me.”

\--------------------------

He seemed well enough to walk, at least, which was good. Standing, he was a good deal taller than her, but she didn’t feel threatened by him. The way he kept his face down, hiding behind his hood, spoke to her of self-doubt, perhaps related somehow to his chin scar. It only strengthened her resolve to try and do something for him.

After the altercation with the drunk _gopnik_ jerks, Anna was feeling wired, and maybe even a little brave. She wasn’t the kind of person who played the hero usually, but it had worked out this time and she couldn’t help but be a bit proud of herself. He was lucky she’d been there, and she was lucky she hadn’t gotten hurt, or worse.

He awkwardly followed her through the turnstiles and back up to the street. The police were nowhere to be seen. She tried not to think too much about what would have happened to her if the train hadn’t arrived when it did.

They walked a block in silence from streetlamp to streetlamp before Anna said anything. She didn’t really like silences. When people talked, she got a better sense of them. So far, all she knew about him was he was alone, homeless, and perhaps emotionally in a bad place.

“I’m Anna,” she said, hoping to spur conversation.

After some hesitation, he replied.

“Jared. Nomak,” he said with an accent she’d missed before. “People call me Nomak.”

“Hi, Nomak... I think I saw you earlier, when you walked by the clinic. You wanted to donate blood, didn’t you?” she asked, trying not to stare at his pallor when he peered at her around the edge of his hood.

He shrugged and shook his head.

“No, not for me.”

His choice of wording tripped her up a little, and she immediately tried to interpret what he might have intended to say as a nonnative English speaker.

“Are you sick?” she asked, gently, knowing how strange it must have sounded coming from someone wearing a skull balaclava. He didn’t seem the least bit bothered by her appearance, though.

“Kind of,” he answered without looking at her.

A pang of sympathy pulled at her heart. An addict, probably.

“You clean?” she asked without mincing words, and to his blank look, clarified, “are you using? Drugs?”

She was used to asking this of strangers coming in to donate, back before the intake had dropped to next to zero. She found that when asked directly, most people would answer honestly.

His eyes were weirdly bright in the chilly indirect lighting of the traffic lights and closed storefronts they passed.

“No. Not drugs. Nothing like that.”

She wasn’t sure she believed him, but it wasn’t her place to judge. All she was going to do was buy him a hot dog and maybe a hot coffee. She told herself that whatever he did after that was not up to her, no matter how badly she wanted to help.

When he insisted on staying outside of the little shop on the sidewalk, just out of the garish light streaming through barred windows, she thought it was a little odd. She supposed she could understand the shame and self-consciousness that sometimes came with being in a bad place and didn’t press it.

The convenience store was one she visited occasionally because it also sold the brand of clove cigarettes she liked. She bought two coffees, a hotdog, and shelled out a little extra for a pack of Djarum blacks from the stocky, tattooed woman behind the counter. The entire store was rigged under the watchful eyes of multiple security cameras, and the clerk watched Anna’s half-covered face with some wariness as she rang everything up. Once paid for, though, the clerk immediately disregarded Anna and went back to her magazine.

Anna nudged the door open with her coat-padded hip, balancing an extra-large regular coffee in the crook of her arm for him, and a small decaf in her hand for herself. She held a hotdog in her other hand, close to her so the night wouldn’t steal its warmth too fast.

Outside, a frigid wind had picked up. Biting cold cut through her lined skinny jeans like shards of glass, and sent trash tumbling along the sidewalk ahead of it. The man hadn’t left. Nomak stood there, watching her from the shaded wall beside an empty store front. His hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his brown fur jacket. It looked like reindeer hide. Not bad, perhaps a lucky find at a thrift store, but still not the warmest of materials when the nights dropped well below freezing.

“Hold this,” she said, pushing the food at him without waiting for him to accept. He turned away and coughed again into a closed fist before accepting it with the other hand. It sounded bad, maybe bronchitis. Or pneumonia.

She knew that either of those illnesses, while easily treatable with the right help, could be deadly this time of year, especially for people with nowhere warm to go.

She grabbed his coffee from the crook of her arm and handed it to him.

This, he accepted more readily, curling around its warmth with plain appreciation.

“Eat,” she said, nodding to him. He looked at the hotdog, and then her.

“Why are you helping me?” he asked with his soft, gritty voice.

“Because, sorry, you just seem like you could use it,” she said, tugging her balaclava down despite the cold. She set her coffee on top of an empty newspaper box and lit a fresh cigarette.

She pretended not to notice when his eyes dropped to her uncovered mouth, instead choosing to be wholly absorbed in enjoying her burnt sludge coffee. She had to be honest, she was having trouble keeping her own eyes off the man.

Even with his sickly pallor, he was good-looking with a well-defined bone structure, all sharp cheekbones and straight angles. He might have even stood out in a crowd back in the states, given the proper wardrobe. Of course, half the people in this country were staggeringly attractive, something they themselves seemed to take for granted.

“You live around here?” he asked, looking down at his hotdog as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it. The question made her feel uncomfortable. But from what she could tell, he was more nervous about her than the other way around.

“No,” she answered truthfully, thinking again about calling a taxi. She didn’t get paid until Friday, and most of that meager amount was already spoken for in the form of bills and rent. “I usually take the train, but, well… I didn’t want to share a ride with those jerks.”

He nodded, downcast face now hidden in shadow.

“That wasn’t smart, standing up to them. You don’t know what they were saying about you. They were animals.”

A rat scurried by in the gutter and Anna kept her eyes on it as it skittered into a steaming storm drain. It briefly distracted her from the sick curl in her stomach. It was a familiar feeling to women and those otherwise used to being preyed upon.

“I understood enough.”

She tugged the mask back over her mouth, feeling safer behind it. Only then did she notice that the food she’d given him was gone. He must have devoured it when she wasn’t looking.

“You still hungry?” she asked, though her own appetite was long gone, replaced by a general weariness.

“I’ll be fine for a little while,” he said, clutching the oversized paper cup in both hands. “You’ve been very kind. I wish there was a way to repay you.”

She just wanted to get home, feed her cat, and drink something warm wrapped under a thick blanket. But she didn’t want to leave him, literally, out in the cold. She felt a pang of guilt even thinking about it. Here she was longing for her warm apartment when this man had been desperate enough to seek refuge in a subway station.

“Just get yourself taken care of, okay? You don’t owe me anything.”

“At least let me walk you home. It’s the least I could do. Also... I would enjoy your company.”

He dropped his eyes, almost bashfully. Was he _flirting_ with her?

“You’re sweet to ask,” she said chewing it over. It had been neither a ‘yes’ nor a ‘no’. She was tempted to say yes, and, if she _had_ to walk, she couldn’t pretend that she wouldn’t feel a lot better walking with someone else.

“There are worse things than drunks out here at night.” He cleared his throat and shoved his empty hand into his pocket. "Someone kind like you shouldn't go walking alone.”

Anna snorted, a little surprised by his compliment. He offered a hopeful smile.

“Only part of the way. I’ll leave you alone after that.”

Anna was touched by his sincerity and more than a little flustered. He coughed into his hand as he waited for her answer, trying his best to suppress it. She sighed and shivered.

“It’s a bit far, and goes through a couple bad areas,” she warned. As she said it, she decided that she really wouldn’t mind the added security of walking with someone else. He might not have been healthy enough to be a threat, but others wouldn’t necessarily know from looking.

“I’ll be fine,” he said to the ground.

“Will you?” she asked.

“I have somewhere to go.” To her skeptical look, he added, “I promise.”

She chewed on her lip stud, but didn’t say no this time.

When she started walking, he followed a couple steps behind and to her side.

She headed in the direction of home, dumping her cold coffee in the next empty trashcan she saw, but Jared wanted to hold on to his. She led him down side streets and into the older neighborhoods. Along the way, she tried her best to maintain some kind of conversation, though small talk didn’t seem to come easily for him.

“Are you Czech?” she asked as they walked by a laundromat.

He nodded and said ‘yes’ in his language, his voice barely audible over the ambient street sounds. “I come from Greek blood. But I was born here.”

She caught herself studying him, puzzled once more over his strange manner of speaking.

Someone was screaming out their 3rd floor window to a singing drunk below, and she found herself walking a little closer to Nomak, appreciating his imposing, if bowed, stature.

She kept stealing glances at him, but looked away awkwardly when he finally noticed. She was being too obvious, but she couldn’t help it. He seemed like a nice man, or at least a friendly one. It was a welcome change to her mostly solitary life here.

They waited at a crosswalk ahead of a loud group of teenagers blasting hip hop from a boombox straight out of the early 90s. Her companion watched them out of the corner of his eye, Anna noticed, but he seemed unconcerned, which put her at ease. She made sure that it looked like they were together, in case the youths wanted trouble. But when the signal changed and they crossed, the group wandered off elsewhere.

“You are American?” he asked, glancing sideways at her. She accidentally locked eyes with him, startled newly by the way the shadows cut shapes into his skin.

“Yes, but I’ve been living in the city for almost a year.”

“Why? Why would you come here?”

She’d originally planned to part ways with him at a safe distance a few blocks from her apartment, but she was finding it hard to follow through. The way he looked at her, shy but interested, triggered the softie in her. So, she stayed with him and took the shortcut across an empty, overgrown lot.

“I love it here,” she said, tugging down her mask to smile and wipe the snot off her nose. Her breath puffed into the air in front of her, and the frost nipped at the tip of her bare nose.

“Why?” he asked. A cat howled in an alleyway, and a trashcan clattered elsewhere, sounds of a desolate urban .

She realized he was still holding his coffee, and by the sounds of it, it was mostly full.

“You don’t have to keep the coffee if you don’t want it. I won’t be offended,” she said kindly, and moved on without a further thought. “And… I don’t know, it’s hard to say _why_. Prague is just so… beautiful. Alive.”

He chuckled, hoarse, but made no move to dispose of the drink.

“You’ve been lucky, then, if you can say that. It’ll drain the life out of you eventually. This city always does.”

She was surprised by how well-spoken he was, and couldn’t help but feel a measure of pity for his attitude. Healthwise, he struck her as someone who hadn’t been on the streets for long, but he seemed familiar with the darker side of the city.

They passed by a junk car lot with barbed wire at the top of the chain link fence.

“I _have_ been lucky, but I guess that’s why I want to share it around,” she answered staring down at her boots as she walked. “There’s still some good left in the world, you know. It’s too easy to only see the bad things sometimes.”

She didn’t know anything about his circumstances. But she was starting to think he’d lied when he said he had somewhere else to go.

“You’re kind for helping me, but most wouldn’t. And maybe they’re right not to.” She watched him close himself off again in the curve of his shoulders. A story started to come together in her mind, of a well-off man who’d lost everything. Perhaps the son of immigrants, regarding his comment about Greek blood.

“What's your story?” She asked, daring to be a little nosy if it meant confirming her suspicions.

He walked beside her in an unlit alley between two abandoned office buildings, and she didn't miss the way he was checking out their surroundings, perhaps for threats. Or witnesses, a mild warning edged in, but she pushed it aside. She wanted to trust him, after everything. She wanted him to be good. When they emerged back into the light of the street lamps on the other side, she felt guilty for even suspecting.

“Nothing worth telling.”

“You don’t have any family?” she prompted, unable to stem her curiosity.

“Not anymore,” he answered with a tense jaw. Bad family history, she thought. Or a lot of tragedy. She felt guilty for prying. Just because she’d helped him, it didn’t make her privy to his personal information. She hoped he hadn’t been thinking of this as an interrogation.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. He gave her a sideways glance.

“I’m not. It’s better this way, if you can believe it.”

She’d ended up walking a lot farther than she originally meant to.

Anna stopped on the corner across the street from the blocky, pre-war apartment building where she lived, chewing on the inside of her lip piercing. Whatever his story, she didn’t want to pry if he was reluctant to share. She fingered the cellphone in her right pocket, but pulled out her pack of cigs instead.

“Look… I might be an idiot here,” she started, tearing off the plastic strip around the outside, “and I don’t know anything about you, sure. But… you seem like, at least, I hope you’re not, one of the bad ones. If you are, well, then, I don’t know… but, if you’re not, and I can help you, then everyone wins.”

Her face burned hot in the icy air, and she was glad for the distraction of her stick. She hadn't even wanted it, it was just a task to occupy her hands when she had the anxious tendency to fidget.

“What are you getting at?” he asked. Did she see a hint of a smirk on his face? He looked good when he smiled, even with that scar.

Anna searched him for anything she might have missed, some minor detail that would give away a hidden, dangerous disposition. She sucked a burning, floral lungful of clove smoke before blowing it out in a rush.

“I don’t want to have to worry about you, man,” she answered. “Call me a bleeding heart, but I lose sleep over this kind of thing.”

He stared at her like he didn’t understand English. She groaned to herself, already in disbelief over what she was about to say.

“Okay, look, if you want, I mean, in case your other option doesn’t work out… you are more than welcome, that is, don’t feel obligated…” she was babbling. She took a deep breath to stop it from getting worse. “What I’m saying is, you can stay in my apartment. With me, for tonight. It’s not supposed to be so cold tomorrow. You can try the shelter, then. They might be able to help you find work.”

His expression was unreadable. She thought she saw gratitude or… disbelief. It only made her cheeks burn hotter.

“I can promise you a hot shower and a couch,” she said in an effort to sweeten the offer, glancing across the street. “You can at least get a good night’s sleep.”

He looked down, hiding his face in shadow.

“No. Thank you, but… I shouldn’t. I can’t,” he said. Anna chewed the inside of her cheek until it bled.

“You're sure?” she asked, a bit disappointed, and unable to shake the selfish desire for his company, even if it was platonic and short-lived. “I don't bite.”

He offered a tight smile and shook his head.

“I'm sure.”

A man of few words, she thought with a sigh.

“Okay. Then here,” she said, unwilling to give up just yet. She pulled out the crumpled receipt from ‘Okay Food,’ and started scribbling down her number with the tiny pen she kept on her keychain. “This is my number. Call me if you change your mind.”

Or, if you get clean and want a date, she added silently. She handed the paper to him and he accepted with some hesitation.

“Thank you,” he said. She waved his gratitude away.

With a nod, he made the first move to walk away, perhaps a gentlemanly show of goodwill. He was still holding the coffee cup and the receipt. She watched his figure retreat for a minute before finally seeking refuge from the cold inside her building.

As the rickety antique lift wheezed and creaked its way up five floors, she thought back on everything that had transpired in the last couple of hours. She’d have to tell the old woman living across the hall before she left for work tomorrow. Miss Sofie didn’t get out much anymore, and their afternoon teas were a bright spot in the old Czech grandmother’s day.

Mariuska waddled her way out of the bedroom right around the time Anna was pulling down a can of Happy Cat from the cupboard. The ball of white fluff parked herself next to her empty food bowl and demanded dinner with a dainty ‘mew.’ While Mari gobbled her down her tender vittles with voracious enthusiasm, Anna started the tea, hoping Jared Nomak had found a warm place to sleep tonight.

He’d been a little weird, sure, but so were all the guys she wound up being attracted to. Pretty boys with sad stories were her weakness. Maybe that was why she kept thinking about him. It had been a lifetime since Minneapolis and Vic. A long time since she’d thought about sex. She didn’t want to admit that part of her motivation for packing up her life and going somewhere new was for the distance it put between herself and bad memories.

She didn’t regret it, except when it came to meeting people.

Anna used the apartment's phone line and hooked her clunky old laptop up to the internet to zone out for awhile and catch up on email. She made sure to write her dad a cliff’s notes version of the evening's events while she enjoyed her cup of chamomile.

Occasionally her attention strayed to the cold night outside her bedroom window. She spared a thought for anyone stuck outdoors. Maybe one, in particular, more than others.

At 1:17, she tugged the chain on the small wall-mounted lamp over her head. In the darkness, she settled down under her covers to sleep. Mariuska assumed her spot by Anna’s pillow.

\----------------------

**3:23 AM, Thursday**

Anna saw the numbers before she really understood them.

Why was she awake?

She felt for Mari, but the cat’s spot, coated in a permanent layer of white fur, was cold. She didn’t like how empty her bed felt without the overweight purebred taking up space on it.

Street lights streamed in through the gap in the curtains and painted a bright orange seam on the wall by her bedroom door. She lay there half awake for a moment, staring at the unmoving light on the wall, listening to the soft whisper of snow falling against the glass panes. She thanked her fortune for being warm and dry inside when it was bitterly cold outside. It wasn’t the first snow of the season, and it wouldn’t be the last. She just hoped it didn’t turn everything to ice the next day.

She thought of Nomak. She rubbed her eyes and checked her phone. No calls, she would have heard it. She wished she’d thought to ask him if he even had a phone. A pang of regret, and guilt, started to take the place of her sleepiness.

But why was she awake in the first place?

She yawned and tried a change of position. But when she faced the window, the strip of light fell right on her face.

She got out of bed to negotiated with the inadequate curtains for the most desirable light coverage but spared a moment to peek out at the freshly falling snow.

She grew up in a city that could become bitterly cold in winter, so Prague wasn’t that far outside of her realm of experience. She’d never quite gotten tired of the way the snow looked, though. How it could make even a run-down neighborhood like this brand new. Ghostly flakes drifted down at an angle, joining the rest of it on the street down below. At that moment, with the yellow-light-stained snow covering the ground, and the absolute silence of it, Anna felt like she was the only one awake in the whole world.

Except there was someone out there. Maybe. She couldn’t see anything except a figure, curled up against a low wall bordering the parking lot across the street. Or, maybe it was a trash bag. It was hard to tell from her window, but an irrational thought gripped her.

That was where she’d said goodnight to Nomak.

Maybe he didn’t have access to a phone. Maybe he’d lost her number, or was scared to impose on her generosity. Or, maybe he was a stalker, crazy enough to wait in the cold outside of her building, even if it meant death.

Or, maybe the only Nomak present was the one in her thoughts. She shook her head, annoyed with her involuntary fixation on him. The thing was still down there, against the wall, and it hadn’t moved. It was probably a trash bag. If it were a person, they would probably already be dead on a night like this. Or well on their way.

She pulled the curtain open a little more but still couldn’t make out any more detail. The way the snow changed recognizable features into something new and different had its downside.

She looked at the clock. 3:41AM. Then she started pulling on some wool socks.

Within ten minutes, Anna was walking out the front door of the apartment building into the frigid night. She was fully dressed in her puffy coat and snow boots, and a folded blanket was tucked under her arm, just in case.

The snowfall was gentle but swift, and within seconds she had acquired a loose coating anywhere it could stick. A dog barked down the street, and distant cars honked, dispelling her fantasy of solitude.

She pulled a regular smoke from her nearly-depleted pack to help settle her nerves and made her way across the street beneath the falling curtain of feathery flakes. It was weirdly silent in the immediate area, and the soft crunch of her boots sinking into the virgin snow seemed loud.  She was going to feel pretty stupid when it turned out to be garbage or something like that, but she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep until she’d confirmed it.

A few meters down the sidewalk, she’d come to a stop before a low pile of black garbage bags, showing partially through the accumulated white fluff. Even up close, she could see how she had mistaken it for a person the way they were placed on top of one another, but it didn’t stop her weary annoyance. She shook the snow off of the blanket in her arms as she finished her smoke.

Her eyes roamed over the empty street, then to her apartment building. She followed the zig-zag of the fire escape to the third floor.

At first, she thought she was seeing a shadow cast by the streetlight stories below. But then it moved.

She forgot her clove cigarette. She could only stare, open-mouthed as the shadow, inconsistent with every other around it, moved up the stairs to the fourth, and then the fifth floor. Too fast.

Her heart started racing.

It stopped in front of her bedroom window.

The hot ember of her neglected cigarette singed her fingers and she dropped it into the snow with a startled hiss. She bent over to pick it up without thinking before she remembered the shadow. When she thought to glance back to her building, whatever she’d seen was gone. If it had ever been there.

Uneasy thoughts scrambled for purchase, but she shunted them off before they could take root. She was past this, the mostly irrational fear of Prague at night, and the sense that the shadows held hidden dangers.

She shivered when some of the accumulated snow on her hood started to melt and trickle through the fabric to her scalp. For once, she found it comforting that her bedroom window was sealed. Either by design, or warped over time, the window was fused to its frame, and she’d never been able to get it open. If there was ever a reason to use the fire escape as intended, she’d probably just burn to death, but she wasn’t actually too worried.

She gave the garbage bags one last lingering look before she returned to the lobby, her mind already on the pillows and down-stuffed comforter waiting for her.

\----------------------------------------

 


	2. 8:53 PM, Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm only here for Nomak.

**8:53 PM, Thursday**

Anna watched the traffic milling by with a listless boredom. Every minute since 8:45, she’d sworn she would leave a little early, but old habits persisted.

The day had worn on even worse than usual. After her afternoon tea with Miss Sofie, during which Anna regaled her with the excitement she’d been a part of, Anna took the old woman’s garbage down for her as per usual and went to work. It was a slog getting there, but navigating the knee-high drifts and trying not to trip on concealed hazards (or dog poop) had served at least to distract her. Once in the clinic, though, her mind had nothing to do but wander.

Every person that had passed the window bearing even a remote resemblance to her charity case from the night before made her heart skip a beat. Every time, she was mistaken, and the anticipation soured into something more like shame. The poor guy… he had no idea that he was so wrapped into her thoughts. If she was right about him, he probably had more things to worry about than keeping up with the girl who’d fed him a hot dog.

Logically, she knew it could be easy to romanticize someone she’d just met, that took very little effort. The hard part came when reality started to rear its ugly head. Like with Vic, and his morphine problem 8 months in. Maybe part of her hoped that, with Jared being homeless, she already knew some of his dirt. Even that thought came with some shame, as it was an unfair assessment of his circumstances. Regardless, Anna hated how quickly things like this could become a distraction. Lacking this sort of distraction for so long had only made her less able to guard against it.

Hours ago, she’d resigned herself to the fact that Nomak had moved on. She refused to even consider that he’d been trapped in the cold all night, couldn’t entertain the idea that she’d inadvertently forced him out of the relative safety of the train station in some kind of misplaced concern, and perhaps that he’d come to harm as a result. He seemed smart enough, but she worried about his sense of self-preservation.

Anna logged out of the work computer four minutes early and started getting ready to leave. She was taking her coat off the rack by the front when she saw someone standing outside the door. Of course, she thought, the one night she decided to leave a bit early, someone deigned to show up. She moved to replace her coat with a resigned sigh, until she saw who it was.

Nomak was standing outside the clinic in the snow awkwardly, trying not to look at her. For a good thirty seconds, Anna was rooted in place. All of her worries and thoughts and fixations hit her anew all at once, and a creeping flush rose from her neck and into her face. He glanced over to the door, saw her, and then looked away. He had something in his hand. A cup of coffee shedding steam above it into the cold air.

She shook off her surprise and grabbed her coat. When she opened the front door, distant sirens and car horns hit her at the same time as the smells of exhaust and garbage and grease. The sky overhead was solid black. And there was Jared, hood up, empty hand shoved deep into the pocket of his oversized brown hide coat, just out of the direct light of the streetlamp.

As she pulled the door shut behind her, Jared shuffled his feet. She could see a flattened pit in the snow where she could tell he’d been standing for a little bit before she noticed him. It should have made her uncomfortable, but instead, she felt her stomach flutter.

“Jared,” she said before she remembered that he preferred his last name. “Nomak. Hi.”

“Anna,” he greeted with a nod. She was delighted with the way he pronounced her name, with a Czech accent rather than the American way. His shaded eyes darted around like they didn’t want to linger in any place for too long, especially not on her.

He held out the coffee cup, his eyes somewhere on the pavement ahead of him. “I got you a cup of coffee.”

At a loss, Anna smiled.

“Thank you, that was really nice,” she said, turning away only to pull the security gate closed and hide her stupid grin.

She turned back toward him and accepted the steaming cup, only then noticing that it was from the same shop she’d brought him to the night before. She kept her thoughts to herself when she considered that maybe he thought she liked the coffee there. All the same, when she took a sip, the gratified look on his face all but canceled out the scorched rubber flavor. A single cup of bad coffee from him was more meaningful than it would have been from someone else.

“You look… good,” she said, stealing a good look at the part of his face she could see under his hood. “Better.”

He did, too. The sickly pallor he’d had the night before was a bit warmer, pinker. He looked healthy, if still a bit tired. It was enough to make her consider that perhaps he really hadn’t been out on the streets that long. Maybe he’d just been having a rough spell.

“You’re still as beautiful,” he said with his eyes on her boots. Anna ran her fingers over her hair awkwardly, and then she pulled her hood up. She didn’t know what to say, but she was aware that, because of their positions and how they’d met, it was possible that he was developing a savior crush on her. She hoped not. She would never, in good conscience, take advantage of that, no matter how cute he was.

He broke the silence, nodding toward the train station.

“It’s not that far, but I thought… hoped, that maybe you’d like some company.” His English really was quite excellent. She’d have to ask him about that sometime.

“Yes, I’d love to walk with you,” she replied, watching his mouth curve into a smile before it was hidden again. With that, Jared shoved both hands into the pockets of his overcoat and waited for her to start before he joined just a step behind and to the side of her, same as before.

The day’s foot traffic had carved a good trench in the snow, but even so, it was impossible for them to walk side by side. When someone came from the other direction, she had to turn to the side to let them pass. It wasn’t very conducive to conversation, but she tried anyway.

“You found a place to stay, then? Something to eat?” she asked, stepping aside again for an old woman bearing a pair of overflowing cloth shopping bags. She took the opportunity to look at him again, startled when her eyes met his. Then she was blushing again. It was ridiculous.

“Yes. You really don’t need to worry about me. I promise.”

She snorted and forced down another mouthful of coffee, trying her best to focus on the warmth instead of the taste.

“I can’t help it,” she admitted. She thought about the night before, waking up to thoughts of him being out in the cold, freezing to death and being unable to go back to sleep until she’d confirmed that the pile of trash bags under the snow was _not_ him, or some other unfortunate soul. She briefly recalled the unsettling image of a moving shadow on the fire escape, but dismissed it. At 3:00 AM, the world was full of imaginary monsters. “I was concerned about you. It’s just the way I am.”

“You like to help people,” he stated. She shrugged.

“Sometimes one kind thing is enough. I hope someone would do that for me, if I ever found myself in a bad place. People _have_ done it for me. And now, if I can, I try to be that someone whenever I have the chance.” The words flowed easily, because they were true. Anna truly hoped they didn’t sound like conceit to him. Some might interpret it that way, though.

“Even if it puts you in danger?” he asked, quieter. They’d reached the steps down to the station, but Nomak didn’t leave her side, so she started descending. A different busker was serenading the waiting passengers with accordion renditions of pop songs, and she tossed her pocket change into his upturned hat.

“Well… not usually. I’m not trying to be a hero, Nomak,” she said, dropping the empty coffee cup in a trash bin. She considered tugging up her balaclava, but with him walking beside her, she didn’t feel so vulnerable. “I almost ran away. They had guns, and were drunk. I won’t lie, I was scared.”

“But you didn’t. Run, I mean,” he said, clearing his throat. She turned her head to try and read his expression. He was observing the crowd of people milling about on the platform. She noticed that he stood up straighter now. More confident. Tall. It gave her hope, and a selfish part of her was trying to decide if her attraction to him was really all that morally reprehensible.

“ _Why_ didn’t you run?” he asked, looking at her now without blinking, as if something vital depended on her answer. “There was no one else around. No one would have known but you. Even so, no one would have blamed you.”

She tried not to notice the way his chiseled jaw and cheekbones came together like facets of a rock carving. She’d been around men that would be considered more universally attractive. But Jared had something else that she couldn’t quite identify. She couldn’t very well tell him that she’d been brave because she was hoping he was single, though, not that it was true. She hadn’t even seen what he looked like when she first made the choice to step in.

“It wasn’t a fair fight,” was what she ended up saying. Nomak snorted and finally dropped his eyes. She caught herself staring at his mouth. There was something strange about his teeth. She’d thought she noticed it the night before, but couldn’t have been sure. Maybe it was just the fact that they were white, and clean. She followed the chin scar to where she could see it continue to what was visible of his neck.

“No, it wasn’t,” he said, and with a secret smile, “if you hadn’t been there to save me, none of them would have made it on the train.”

For a moment, Anna couldn’t speak. She uttered an automatic laugh, though. By the look on his face, he had been kidding, but she still found herself a little unsettled. Was he affecting bravado in an attempt to impress her? He had to’ve been. It was moments like this that his non-native grasp of English became more obvious. His joke about becoming violent had just overshot its mark and landed somewhere just past the line into ‘uncomfortable’ territory.

Anna pushed it aside. Cultural differences and all.

“Lucky for them it wasn’t necessary,” she said with a playful eyebrow wiggle.

“Yes, lucky them,” he repeated, coughing discreetly into his fist. Anna pursed her lips and started toying with the inside of her labret piercing with her tongue, looking across the rails to the people on the other platform.

The station announcer said her train would be minorly delayed. Nothing new, but at least it was coming. Anna found that she was a little relieved to have their parting put off a little bit longer, even if the conversation had taken a weird turn.

“You speak English very well,” she said, changing to a more safe subject. “May I ask how you learned?”

“I’ve had a lot of time to myself,” he answered, tapping the toe of one boot to the heel of the other absently. Fidgeting, like her. “And I like to read.”

“A man who reads,” she said with a smile. In the back of her head, a box was checked. “And you taught yourself? Your accent is very good. I didn’t even know you were from here until you said your name.”

“I don’t want to talk about me,” he said, then, in an ambiguous tone. Anna worried that she’d crossed a line, maybe insulted him without meaning to. She hated that she wasn’t being more careful, she was usually so much better about respecting boundaries. Jared was likely being polite out of a misplaced sense of indebtedness.

“I’m sorry if I’m being too nosy,” she said quickly, embarrassed with her complete lack of tact. “You don’t need to answer all my questions. Sometimes I forget that not everyone likes to spill their life’s details to the first stranger they meet. It’s just that I tend to be an open book.”

“No need to be sorry. I only mean that I’d like to know more about you,” he was peeking at her around the side of his hood. Anna laughed nervously and went for a cigarette before she remembered that they were underground. Other people were smoking, but she didn’t want to add her own contributions to the polluted air, and clove could be particularly potent.

“I guess you’re talking to the right person, then” she said with a self-deprecating shrug. “What do you want to know?”

 _‘_ Want to go get better acquainted by those payphones?’ her mind supplied before she could stop it. She was grateful that he couldn’t hear her thoughts, but she looked down at the scuffed toes of her snow boots to hide her self-inflicted blush all the same.

“What brought you to Prague” he asked, shifting his stance slightly so he could look at her a little more directly. She could tell by his shape that he had a nice frame somewhere beneath the layers of baggy clothes. Maybe even a bit of muscle from the easy way he stood with his shoulders back, and almost no sign of the apologetic hunch he’d had before. He was definitely in better shape tonight. More confident, even when he still kept his head bowed under his obscuring hood.

“I was in a bad place back home,” she answered without a care. “Just in a rut I couldn’t get out of. I always wanted to see Europe, especially the Slavic countries.”

He nodded.

“A lot of history here,” he said. There was a lot of weight to his words, enough to grab her attention. “Not all good.”

“Old countries tend to accumulate a lot of both,” she answered with a curious look. He didn’t say anything to this, and there was a moment where the conversation lulled. Anna overheard a couple, Russian tourists, trying to navigate the subway rail lines. She was tempted to step in and help, but didn’t want them to think she’d been eavesdropping.

“How far do you live?” he asked.

“Not too far, maybe a 20-minute ride. It’s good, gives me time to think, or listen to music or whatever.” She didn’t know why she was telling him all those unnecessary details when he hadn’t asked. He nodded sagely, though, as if she’d said something actually interesting. She felt a strange sense of urgency then. The train would be there soon, and she’d have to say goodbye to him.

“Where did you stay last night?” she asked, before she could think of a more artful way to segue into what had been looming in the back of her mind. What she wanted to know was whether he had a safe place to stay tonight, too, but she didn’t want him to think she was coming onto him. Even if part of her kept urging her to.

“Nuh-uh,” he smirked. “I thought I was the one asking the questions.”

Anna sighed, a little anxious about that, and his elusiveness. She could see the lights of the Eastbound coming.

“I don’t want to leave you unless I know you’ll be okay,” she told him, meeting his dark, soft eyes. The shadows under them were still visible, though improved. She wanted to see them gone. Nomak nodded, his eyes roaming the people shuffling closer to the embarkation line.

“Then don’t,” he said, sparing her a brief look. “I can leave where I did before. I’m going in the same direction anyway, so it would make sense.”

“Yeah,” she said, latching onto his reasoning a little too eagerly, even if it felt more like a justification than the truth. Guilt nagged, but she ignored it now. “That does make sense. Okay.”

The train pulled up with a squeal. Anna negotiated her way inside the crowded car and found a spot standing on the other side, her hand threaded through a dangling grip handle. Nomak kept his head down as he made his way to stand next to her. Or really, because of their height differences, over her. He held onto the strap next to hers and faced her. She swallowed the lump in her throat, so overly conscious of just how near he was. She forced her eyes away from his figure to somewhere safer, like the young woman listening to headphones on the bench behind him.

The train lurched to motion, and Anna was hyper aware of the brief, accidental contact when, swaying with the motion of the car, she lightly touched his front with her elbow.

He was so close to her that she could smell him. He didn’t have a bad smell, like BO or unwashed body. Instead, he seemed to have absorbed the scents of urban life. Smoke, frying oil, tar as from asphalt. And underneath it all… a hint of something familiar. Again, not bad, but somehow cloying in the back of her nose, just too faint to be identifiable. She was puzzling over it when he spoke again.

“Do you live alone?” he asked in a low voice. Anna’s face flushed hot. It wasn’t really an appropriate question, or wouldn’t have been normally. She was tempted to tell him everything, though, especially if it made her home more appealing to him as an alternative to the cold. She looked at the people crowded around them on the benches or standing. Some were already stealing a nap as the snowy nighttime cityscape blurred past the windows, ancient architecture jammed next to more modern structures.

“I have Mariuska,” she answered. “She’s fat, and lazy, but affectionate. It makes up for having to do all the housework.”

“Ah,” he answered. She didn’t know if it was her imagination, or if she’d detected a bit of disappointment. She smiled up into his hood.

“Mariuska is my cat,” she stated.

He smirked, perhaps a little relieved. The train came to a stop, but she was focused on his expression and didn’t pay any attention.

“I thought, that maybe you were... together, with someone,” he admitted, his eyes focused somewhere past her head. “Though I did find it strange that you called her fat.”

Anna snorted. He’d been relieved to hear that she was not ‘with’ someone, and of course, her brain stowed it away for safekeeping like a magpie hoarded shiny objects.

“She is fat. It’s not her fault, though, I’m the one that overfeeds her. I guess I’m trying to make up for not being there most of the day.”

As the train continued on its way, Anna tried to manage her abundant curiosity about him, weighing all the questions she had against his reluctance to talk about himself.

“Do you have any pets?” she asked, settling on something ‘safe’. She wondered if he’d see through her not-so-subtle probing.

“No, I never have. There was no point, in my family.”

Anna latched onto every detail of what he was sharing with her about himself, and tried to fit it into the whole picture somehow. His family. Perhaps strict, or oppressive?

“Not big on domesticated animals?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t a hard question. He looked down at her, his eyes on her mouth, but it looked to her like he was somewhere else entirely. She chewed on her lip uncertainly.

“No, I come from a family of  hunters. We were taught to catch our food,” he said neutrally, watching for her reaction. Anna nodded a small encouragement. She liked animals, and wasn’t fond of trophy hunters, but when it came to hunting them for sustenance, it really didn’t bother her. There was something primal about it that she could appreciate. He gazed out the window where the architecture of the city met the banks of the Vltava river, before it disappeared out of sight behind hills and trees. “There’s no honor in killing something that’s had the instinct bred out of it. It would make us no better than them. Endlessly consuming, growing complacent, forgetting where we come from… not everyone feels that way, though.”

He’d spoken his thoughts so clearly, and with such fluency, that Anna felt the brief spike of suspicion. A wordless fear that maybe she was being tricked somehow, because his English was just a little too good. Enough that she was starting to think that he’d been choosing his words deliberately, and had considered the different meanings before saying the things that tripped her up.

It seemed a little paranoid to her, though. Nothing that he’d said so far had contradicted with any of her observations, from the fact that he was well-read, and smart enough to teach himself English. It didn’t mean that he was an expert in American-English and Czech trans-cultural language subtleties, though. Jared seemed to be no more, or less, than what he’d said, even down to the reindeer hide overcoat, which she was starting to think might have come from his own family rather than a thrift store. It looked old, but if he came from a long line of game hunters, it might have been his grandfather’s, for all she knew.

“Did I upset you?” he asked, jarring her out of her thoughts. She realized that she’d been staring at him somewhere around his navel, and chose to move her attention to his left shoulder instead.

“No, I was just thinking… you speak English really well.” It was the first thing that came to her mind, but at least it was true.

“So, that’s what you took away from that?” he asked. He had a bit of a shine to his eye, like he was teasing, but Anna still felt a little guilty. He’d just shared more about himself than he had so far, even after saying he didn’t want to.

“I’m sorry, I heard you. It’s just…” she chewed on the inside of her cheek, tearing at the soft skin absently. It’s just that I’ve been thinking about you all day, she thought. It’s just that I feel like a horrible person for being attracted to you when you’re at a disadvantage. It’s just that I left my warm bed after 3 in the morning to walk out in the freezing snow and make sure that wasn’t you turning to ice outside my apartment. Instead, she settled on “it’s just that it’s been a long shift, and I didn’t sleep so well last night. And... my stop is coming up.”

“So it is,” he answered. His voice, and his face, was unreadable. Anna didn’t know how to respond to that. She wondered, belatedly, if he’d taken her comment about her stop as an indication that she was eager to end this. She wasn’t, necessarily. But the wild thoughts going through her mind kept running into her uncertainties. She really didn’t know a lot about him. When it came down to it, she didn’t even know if he _was_ homeless, or if any of the things he’d shared were true. All she had was her impressions, and the deep and overwhelming hope that he was genuine.

Anna toyed with her cell phone, stealing glances at him when she could. His eyes were closed, and she could see his jaw working. He was tense about something. Maybe he regretted coming with her. Or maybe it was from being around so many people. That made more sense, based on how shy and withdrawn he seemed.

She wanted to tell him that if it was the chin scar, he shouldn’t be self-conscious. Anna didn’t want to go so far as to say that it was cool, just because the circumstances under which he’d received it may have been traumatic, but she liked it. Was even a little drawn to it, maybe.

“You’re going to walk with me to the corner, right?” she asked, hopeful, and scared that she was misreading him, or acting unconscionably. She really wanted a cigarette.

Nomak took a deep breath, and then his face softened with half-closed eyes and a smile. Anna melted a little.

“I was hoping you would ask,” he said. Anna ‘s heart skipped a beat with that, and when the motions of the train departing a stop knocked her into him again, she wasn’t so fast to move away. She had seen now what was so strange about his smile, in that flash of teeth. The top row was straight and as white as she’d thought, unusual even for well-off people here, but there were almost… too many of them. Or they were too small, or sharp, or something.

As her lizard brain sometimes did, thoughts of the kind of marks they’d make in her skin were foisted upon her, unsolicited. A hot, guilty shiver passed through her.

Stop it, she told herself. Stop it, you’re being reckless. She took a deep breath, snagging his smell in the process, and beneath her thick winter coat, she started shaking.

The train rolled into her station. They were some of the last occupants, she realized. She had been so preoccupied with the man standing next to her that she hadn’t even noticed the other people getting off. It must have looked a little strange, when the car started to empty, that they were still standing so close. Or, she thought, people might have just assumed that they were a couple.

She didn’t say anything when she got off on the platform, or when Nomak followed her. Anticipation burned in her chest, as well as fear. Fear that she had lost her objectivity, and was headed blindly into a possible future mistake, one that hadn’t happened yet, one that could yet still be averted..

They were just walking, she reasoned. They’d just had coffee, they were just talking. That’s all.

Nomak, whose legs were far longer, kept his stride with her as she walked up the stairs to the street level. It emptied into a square on the other side of her apartment. A group of young men and women who’d chosen this area as their haunt for last few months, were listening to loud music, drinking, and smoking by a statue of some Czech diplomat or other. Its base was covered in graffiti, some of which looked very fresh, but she wasn’t worried. They weren’t violent criminals from what she’d seen of them, and their presence might deter worse ones from coming.

The sight of their glowing smokes made Anna’s fingers itched, and she pulled a black stick out of the clove pack. The first puff was out of desperation. She’d been looking forward to it all day, even if Nomak had managed to distract her temporarily. The second drag was slower, and she savored it a bit more.

“You want a smoke?” she asked, aware that she’d never even thought to offer. “It’s clove, though. Not everyone likes the taste. A disgusting habit that is slowly killing me, I know.”

Nomak watched her as he walked, moist eyes glinting from the shadows of his hood. The impulsive side of her urged her to lick her lips, and let the potent, floral smoke seep out of her nostrils like dragon’s breath. Knowing that he was watching her made her feel… intoxicated. And walking with him in step beside her made her feel stronger than she was.

“No, thank you. But… life is short enough as it is,” he said, fixated on her mouth. “You should enjoy what you can. Smoke, if you want.”

“A little fatalistic,” she answered, no longer trying to hide the fact that she was having trouble keeping her eyes off of him and on the ground ahead. She stumbled on something hidden beneath the snow, but caught herself, and recovered her dignity, before Nomak could react. “But I can appreciate it. I mean, something’ll kill me eventually. I might as well get to choose the method.”

“Do you want to die?” he asked.

The question startled her.At a glance, she could see that he was serious, watching her closely as before. The words he’d chosen might have almost sounded like a threat, except for the way he spoke them. Like he truly wanted to know, but the act of even asking it made him sad.

She had wondered about him, too.

“No,” she said, unsure whether she should reassure him or make him clarify his question. “I’m not suicidal or anything. I’m pretty happy, actually, considering. It’s just that certain things run in my family, some kinds of cancer. I figured I might as well pick my executioner, you know? It was kind of a joke. Kind of a bad one.”

She took another drag, self-conscious. Her route brought them into a dark alley between her building and the next, and her worry was only a brief flicker this time.

“And your family… are they still alive?” he asked, soft. They emerged into the light on the other side. Anna tried to draw out the rest of her smoke as long as possible.

“My dad is, yeah. My mom died a few years ago. Breast cancer,” she said without difficulty.

The pang of familiar grief came back, like it did sometimes, but she didn’t avoid it or push it aside. To her, it represented years of counseling and support groups, and was something to be, if not appreciated, then acknowledged. She recognized the old pain, accepted it, and then let it sink back down when it was ready. She wasn’t even self-conscious about showing it in front of other people anymore. Especially not Jared, though she wasn’t sure why.

“I’m… sorry,” Jared said in a thick voice. He sounded like he was suppressing a sob. Curious, Anna looked over to him. His head was bowed, shoulders hunched. Was he shaking? She felt like a monster. It was freezing cold outside, he didn’t even have the basic necessities for the night, and here she was regaling him with her sob story.

“Please don’t be, it’s okay,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm with her gloved fingertips. He looked at her hand. “It’s been a long time. I’m getting to terms with it. _I’m_ sorry, for being such a downer. Sometimes I just don’t know when to shut up. You shouldn’t let me go on like that.”

For all she knew, the family of which he’d spoken, in past-tense she had to acknowledge, had gone through a similar thing, but he hadn’t been able to get the same kind of help she did. She might have uncovered past traumas. She really wanted to know, but she wasn’t going to ask.

“No,” he said, adamant enough to surprise her. “Please, keep talking. It’s… helping me to hear it. I could listen to you all night.”

He looked away immediately, down the street as if part of him was thinking he should make a run for it. As such, he missed Anna’s dopey grin. She hid it behind her hand anyway in the guise of taking another drag.

He’d said all night. Even overlooking the potential euphemisms one could read into it if shameless enough, Anna liked the idea of staying up with him all night very appealing. Even if only to talk, or to relax without talking. Just seeing him comfortable would give her such undeniable joy.

“You want to come up?” she asked, deliberately pretending to concentrate on finding her keys.

He didn’t answer for a minute. She looked to him, again worried she might have been too forward, but they locked eyes. His face bore a keen, almost involuntary look of hunger. His mouth was open, bottom lip trembling. The scar there looked a little puffy, more prominent. Perhaps agitated by the cold, like her tattoos sometimes got to be. Anna wasn’t sure her coat could hide how much she was quaking where she stood, now. The tremors even reached her hand. She stubbed the cigarette and tossed it into a bin before he could notice.

“You’re inviting me into your home?” he asked finally. His voice was almost choked. Anna recognized it as repressed desire for some kind of affection, something she felt she could understand, at least a little. Being on the streets meant more than just having no home, or not knowing where the next meal might come from. It also often meant being starved of intimacy, a sort of neglect that tended to get overlooked next to the other things.

“Yes, Jared, I am inviting you into my home. I also invited you last night, if you remember. It’s a tiny apartment, though. Barely a closet, really. But it’s warm, and dry, and safe, and I won’t bother you, if that’s what you want. You can take a hot shower. I probably have some clean socks somewhere, or a shirt. I’m not a great cook, but I could even make you a sandwich, if you’re hungry.” Remembering the way he hadn’t touched the coffee she’d given to him, she didn’t offer him any, worried he might accept just because it was being given to him. She tugged at her earlobe again, poked a pinky through the hole in the middle of the tunnel plug. “Just… let me know what you need and I’ll try to help you out.”

“How do you do that?” he asked, almost demanded, though there wasn’t any anger to it. Just confusion. “How can you be so… _generous_ , when there are some who’d kill you as quickly as look at you? Why are you so _good,_ Anna? You are outnumbered. Maybe you don’t see it, but there are far more predators out there than altruists. I’ve seen them, and lived among them. I know.”

Anna was as startled by his eloquence, yet again, as with his gravity. He’d called her good, and he’d meant it. Enough that it might have otherwise made her feel flattered. But he hadn’t said it like a compliment. He’d said it like it was a failing, a fatal flaw. She regarded the way he looked at the pavement, lightly tapping a chunk of frozen snow with the toe of his boot.

Was he trying to warn her? Perhaps, against him?

A real fear, something sharp and primal reared its head. She hardened against it and squared her jaw, determined. She wasn’t going to pretend she knew everything, nor would she presume that her judgement of other people was flawless, but she wasn’t going to give into the paranoia that seemed to be sinking its icy fingers into Prague, down to the city’s bones.

“I don’t know, Nomak. I can’t answer that. Maybe I’m blind. Maybe I only see what I want to see.” She was jangling the keys in her pocket as she talked, but was barely aware of the sound. She just made sure he was looking her in the eye, which he was with the same solemn focus. “And maybe I am putting myself at risk, yeah. It’s possible, I know. I could have died if that guy tried to pull his gun on me. I want you to know, I don’t put myself into dangerous situations like that every day, even for other people. But it’s not the first time I haven’t been able to ‘just walk away’ from something. I don’t know, man, I just…”

She looked up at the patch of starry sky visible in a break in the clouds as she tried to find her words. Her breath was a wispy vapor rising and dissipating in the cool night air above her.

“I just want to make the world better in my own stupid way. Yeah, I guess I could even get myself killed some day, standing up to the wrong person. Not that I _want_ that,” she added, giving him a significant look. “It’s dumb, I guess… but I try to live by the ripple effect. Helping other people will make them happier. And then they carry it around with them, and maybe they’ll even pass that on. They’ll probably forget about me, but it doesn’t matter. Even if it’s like… just ten people whose lives are just tiny bit better than they were before, it’s worth it. And feeling like I might have contributed a little bit feels good, Nomak. _Really_ good. It’s pretty self-centered, actually, if I’m honest but... I never said I was perfect.”

He didn’t say anything at first. She did notice, however, that he’d come closer to her at some point, to where his shoulder were almost hunched toward her. He was looking down at her from underneath his hood with a look… like longing. She didn’t have a cigarette to distract herself with, so she started chewing on her lip again. The silence felt unbearable after her torrent of babbling, so of course she had to keep going.

“So… yeah… maybe it doesn’t make sense,” she shrugged, wiping her runny nose on the back of her glove. “I know I don’t know you, really. But you seem like you might be a nice person. Maybe someone who’s down on his luck, or got wrapped up in a bad situation. I just… I want to help you. Even if it’s like… in the form of a hot shower and clean pillow. Maybe I’m wrong, and you’re not what I thought, but I hope not. _I_ believe, at least, that I’m right… so, if you want to come up, you’re welcome. I just have one rule that I’m pretty serious about, and I hate to be a stickler about it, but it’s not something I can budge on.”

“What rule?” he asked in a low, husky voice that set the fine hairs at the nape of her neck on end and curled low in her belly like a hot snake. She cleared her throat, and tried not to think about that.

“No drugs,” she stated flatly, giving him a look that she hoped communicated how serious she was about it, all business now. “I’m not here to judge you for whatever you do. I know that when things are hard, you have to do what you can to feel better, even for just a little while. I get it, really I do. Above all, I want you to understand that. But I can’t abide anything like that, not in my apartment. Do you understand? You can stay with me, for a little while, but please don’t bring anything like that inside.”

Jared shook his head.

“I’ll respect that,” he said. “But like I said, it’s not an issue for me. There are no drugs. They wouldn’t work, anyway.”

Anna side-eyed him for that, but decided he was being sincere enough. She didn’t believe that he was somehow immune to mind-altering substances, but if he wanted to believe that, she didn’t care. As long as he didn’t do them around her. And maybe, just maybe he really _wasn’t_ a junkie like she’d first suspected. If that was the case, she might find herself looking at one of those rare and magical unicorns. A nice man, an _attractive_ man, with a sad story, and no drug problem.

“So… was that a yes?” she asked, hopeful. Her stomach was doing a kickflip inside her abdomen.

He looked very much like he was fighting some kind of war with himself, something internal that shut everything else down, because he was just standing there, frozen like part of the landscape. He glanced up the front of the building, then down to her, just long enough for her to catch the conflict crease his brows. His eyes were distant.

“Okay, yeah,” he said as the tense lines become smooth. “Yes.”

Her relief and apprehension lodged themselves in her throat so fast she thought she was going to be sick.

“Good. Let’s get you warm.”

When she turned to unlock the lobby door, she used that moment of privacy to hide her expression of wide-eyed disbelief. By taking him into her home, she was entering caseworker territory. It wasn’t official, there wasn’t a protocol to follow, and she’d already let it become personal. She wasn’t perfect, but she was trying to do the right thing. As she walked them inside, she begged herself to keep it cool, to stay a safe distance from this, for his sake as well as hers.

 


	3. 10:36 PM, Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to earn that E rating...

\--------------------------------------------

**10:36 PM**

His boots echoed behind her in the lobby, heavy and uncertain against the cracked white tile. The muffled sound of a TV in the one of the two first floor apartments was a typical part of her arrival home after a day of work, and the familiarity of it centered her.

Washing machines chugged away behind the laundry room door to the left of the elevator. To the right, the door to the stairwell, propped open. She hit the button by the doors.

She plucked at her labret piercing with her teeth and lowered her hood while she waited for the lift to make its way to the lobby.

Without the obstruction from her view, she had some difficulty keeping her eyes from straying to the looming figure next to her. Nomak was standing off to her side and slightly behind, as if trying not to crowd her. She wished he would.

She peeled off her gloves, stuck them in her coat pockets, and combed a hand through her hair. Normally a meaningless, unconscious gesture, she now caught herself wondering if he was looking. That involuntary thought triggered a few more, and soon multiple lines of thought were clashing together in the silence.

“Do you like tea?” she asked to stop the cascading thoughts. She threw him a casual glance, and warmth flashed in her cheeks. He _had_ been looking at her.

He opened his mouth to answer, but the laundry room door creaked open on its hinges, then, spilling the muffled sounds of machines into the lobby. Anna jumped, and was immediately annoyed with herself. It was Mr. Kasparek from the third floor, carrying a basket of his whites. The short, fat man was wearing little more than a white undershirt, a pair of striped boxers, and his worn-out house shoes. Anna averted her eyes from the uncomfortable abundance of visible body hair showing around his underclothes.

“Mr. K,” she greeted as she always did if she saw him, even though he had never said anything back to her. She kept her eyes on the elevator floor indicator.

This time, she heard him mumble something in Czech before shuffling past them toward the stairs. He started up them, grunting with each step, before he disappeared around the corner.

“He said the elevator’s broken,” Jared said.

Anna groaned.

“Yeah, figures. It’s alright, I need more exercise anyway,” she said with a shrug. “Are you up to it?”

“I need more exercise, too,” he said. She cast him a dubious glance. He looked like he was in pretty excellent shape, from what she could tell, apart from his color.

She wanted to give Mr. Tesarik as much of a head start as he needed so they could avoid catching up with him. He was far too comfortable walking around in his house clothes, and looking at him head-on was bad enough without getting a view from behind and below.

She started up, determined to pace herself. She’d come to rely on the elevator a little too much in the past months that it had been working without a problem, and had started to get a bit soft.

“I like tea,” he said from a few steps behind her. She gave him a quick glance as she rounded the bend to the second-floor landing. His hood was still up, but it was unzipped and hanging open, now. Underneath it, he was wearing a red scarf, and beneath that a grey sweatshirt.

The red scarf was loose and hanging, the one section looped around him was loose enough that it bared his neck down to the central divot between his collarbones. Anna caught sight of that dip and almost missed a step.

“Good. You don’t want me to make you coffee,” she joked, eyes rigid on the steps ahead of her, face hot.

By the third floor, she’d slowed down, and was breathing a little too hard to talk with ease, but she tried anyway.

“Do you like music?” she asked, starting toward the fourth floor. She had a dire need to slow down, maybe stretch her cramping legs, but Nomak was right behind her, and she didn’t want him to see how out of shape she’d gotten. The smoking didn’t help.

“I like music,” he answered easily. He wasn’t even out of breath.

“Yeah?” she panted, rounding the fourth-floor landing. She leaned on the wobbly railing as much as she dared. “What kind?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He wasn’t even touching the railing. “Classical, I guess.”

“Dvorak?” she said between breaths, thinking herself clever for knowing one Czech composer, at least. She immediately realized that might have been a mistake. She was halfway to five.

“Dušek is nice, too,” came the answer behind her, and of course it was a name she didn’t know.

“I’m not familiar with him,” she said, forcing herself to sound normal, even though her lungs were struggling. Her breaths felt a little wet, and a tickle in her throat meant she’d have to cough soon. She put it off as long as possible.

“He played _klavír_ ,” he said haltingly, speaking the last word in an exquisitely understated Czech accent. “I mean, piano. And harpsichord.”

Anna gripped the door handle for the fifth floor to catch her breath. She couldn’t hold the cough any longer, and muffled it with the inside of her crooked arm as best she could. Of course, after putting it off, it sounded way worse and drawn-out.

Nomak didn’t say anything about it.

“I’ll have to check him out,” she said, clearing her throat. In her head, she tried to remember the name Dušek.

Once she'd recovered enough to maintain some kind of dignity, she led him down the short hall, past the four other apartments on her floor, and pulled out her keys. Miss Sofie’s apartment was quiet, which meant the old woman had retired for the evening to her room instead of falling asleep in front of her TV as she sometimes did. She stole a glance at Nomak, standing a couple feet away. He was looking around, taking in the dingy corridor as if something about it was new and strange to him.

Anna unlocked the two deadbolts and stepped aside to let him in ahead of her. Nomak seemed uncertain, by the way his hands were flexing and tapping lightly at his sides.

He had to sidestep to get by her in the narrow doorway. In the process, his front brushed hers. He was looking down at her as he passed, and she tried, and failed, to not enjoy it.

She pulled the door shut behind her and flicked the light, locked the deadbolts and forced herself not to look at the tall man standing in the middle of her cramped living area. Unfortunately, his relatively dark shape stood out starkly against the aged off-white walls.

She tossed her keys on the counter and called Mariuska with the universal kissy noises. Nomak was regarding her apartment with mute interest.

She shed her bulky coat and hoodie and hung them on one of the pegs by the door, so he'd know to do the same. Then she kicked off her boots.

“You can leave your shoes here by the door,” she said gently, noticing the trail of gritty water he’d left behind him on the linoleum. She kept the place clean, but she didn’t mind his mess. At this point, he could have done a lot of things that she would be willing to brush off.

She busied herself in the kitchen, putting the kettle on the stove and then pulling down a can of cat food, while Nomak kicked off his boots and placed them neatly by the door, next to hers. He was wearing black socks. Both of them had a small hole over the big toe. His gloves, black, had holes in them as well. She caught a flash of pale knuckle and the tip of an index finger with dirt caked under his exposed nail.

“You can take a shower if you want,” she said with a nod toward the open bedroom door behind her. She pulled down the tin of loose leaf chamomile, and wondered if he might prefer something else. Ultimately she decided not to complicate things by asking. “There are some clean towels on the shelves over the toilet. You need anything? Clean socks or a shirt or something? I might even have some shorts around here somewhere that might fit you.”

“Thanks, that sounds nice,” he said.

She tried calling Mari again, peeling open the cat food can lid to tempt her out of hiding, but the cat was making herself scarce.

“Animals don’t really like me,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking around the space. He looked uncomfortable. His eyes landed on the pictures on the wall to the right of the front door in a cheap, multi-picture frame. It was the only decoration on the walls in the main room, but a box of art prints in cardboard tubes sat against the wall beneath. She’d been meaning to put them up, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Most the photos in the frames were older pictures of her friends from high school and after college, pictures of her with both of her parents. Newer photos of just her and her dad, going on adventures together, just the two of them, hiking or travelling.

“Mari likes anyone who feeds her,” she answered with a snort, scraping the cat food into her bowl. “She’s usually not this shy, though.”

“The shower, it’s in here?” he asked without responding to the comment about her cat, turning toward the bedroom. It was possible that he just wasn't an animal person, and she tried not to let it bother her. Everyone was different, and just because she couldn't relate, didn't mean she got to hold it against him. A tiny box in the back of her head stayed unchecked. She was almost relieved.

“Yeah,” she said, racking her brain to remember if she’d left out tampons or a bra or anything else that could be potentially embarrassing.

It was too late, though, Jared had already gone into her bedroom. She was surprised how quiet he was, walking in his socks. Hunters, he’d said of himself and his family, though why it popped into her head just then, she couldn’t be sure.

Moments later, the light in the bathroom spilled out of the open bedroom door, and then the bathroom door closed it off.

Anna breathed, and then she listened for the shower as the water kettle heated.

It came soon after. Without him in the room, she found that she could focus better. In her long black t-shirt and jeans, she could feel the draft creeping in under the front door, so she went to the radiator by the oversized couch and turned it up. As the metal pipes heated, creaking softly, she decided to make the couch into a bed before he got out, in case he wanted to go to sleep right away.

The couch, a cast off from a family that had moved, was a little too big for her apartment, occupying the entirety of the back wall between the corner and her bedroom door frame, but it was extremely plush. She hoped it would be enough for him to sleep comfortably with his tall frame. His feet might still be a little bit jammed into the armrest, but it was better than nothing.

Her bed would probably be more suited to his size, but she dismissed that as soon as it occurred to her, getting fed up with the unwelcome thoughts.

She pushed the coffee table, with her ancient laptop sitting closed on top of it, against the radiator to make more space on the floor, and went into her room to get a clean bed sheet, blanket, and a couple extra pillows from her own bed; she slept with enough that there were plenty to spare. With the lamp on the wall over her bed glowing softly, she made sure to put fresh covers on the pillows, and did her best to ignore the sounds of the running water in the next room. The doors were thin, enough that she could hear the sound of the water spray as it splashed and rolled off of him.

An intrusive thought brought the awareness that he was naked in there, in her shower, and then she was thinking about him naked.

She was so horrified with herself she almost felt ill.

That ended that line of thought immediately, but before she did anything else, Anna dug her headphones out of the interior pocket of her hanging hoodie and found some music on her phone to listen to. She made it loud enough to tune out the running water, but not so loud that she wouldn’t hear him if he needed anything.

She laid out a pair of clean socks on her bed, and an oversized black tee shirt, just in case, before closing the bedroom door behind her.

By the time she heard him leave the bathroom, she’d made up the couch, steeped the tea, and was sitting on the floor against the front of the sofa, under a plush grey blanket, drinking. She’d been scrolling through some articles about František Xaver Dušek, 18th century composer, while his music played to her through one earbud.

When the bedroom doorknob turned, she closed the entire browser window, all eight tabs, and scrambled to stop the music before he came out and somehow heard it.

She looked up to say something, maybe stall him, but forgot what.

He wasn’t even naked, but Anna still lost control of her mouth for a solid few seconds.  It felt like her subconscious was trying to sabotage her at every turn.

He still had his hood up, hands in the pockets of his hoodie, but shed of all his layers, she could see an outline of a body beneath the fabric, and the suggestion of muscle.

The weight of his hanging arms pulled the black material taut over his shoulders which were, for the first time, completely at ease.

She followed the line of his body down to his loose black pants, which tapered toward his feet, and noted that he was still wearing the socks with the holes in them.

“Thank you,” he said, quiet.

“What?” she asked, stupid.

“For the shower. I actually do feel a little more human, now.”

Anna snapped out of it, but somehow, she knew it was too late. She’d been broad-sided by her attraction to him, the kind of desire that rooted itself into her brain and made it hard to think clearly.

In that moment, she’d lost the ability to stay objective, and she knew it.

“Okay, good,” she said, not sure if she should get up. Before she could decide, Nomak was walking around her to get to the couch. His movements were stiff, like he was trying to remember how to walk normally. She followed him as he sat down on the middle cushion, very quietly. And then he didn’t move.

Anna faced forward, and only then realized that the Czech composer’s name was plastered all over her screen, courtesy of the video she’d been listening to. She slammed the laptop shut.

“It’s pretty late. I should leave you alone,” she said with a smile. She started to get up.

“Will you sit with me?” he asked, softly. “For a little while.”

Anna, gripping her laptop white knuckled beneath her blanket, nodded before she could think better of it. He sounded better, but his normal speaking voice was still just a little rough, like he could have used a lozenge. She remembered the tea kettle sitting on her counter under the cozy.

“I made tea, you want some?” she asked, stalling.

“Thank you, but maybe later, if that’s alright.” She didn’t know him well enough to understand his mannerisms, but something told her he just wanted some company. He’d wanted to listen to her talk all night, too. Everything about him spoke of someone who was lonely, and Anna’s heart ached when that hit a little too close to home.

Robotically, she put the laptop and the empty tea mug on the table, and sat down on the far-right cushion. Like him, she stared straight ahead. She realized she was sitting with her back rigid, and worried it might look a little weird. She shifted to a sort of half-lean on the arm of the sofa, but it felt worse. She was committed to it, though, so she forced herself to act like she was comfortable. All the while, Jared was sitting on the cushion next to her, watching her.

“Anna... do I make you nervous?” he asked. Her face flushed hot and she tried to play it off by combing her fingers through her hair, brushing some strands down to hide her face. She really liked how he said her name, with a soft ‘ah’ and that miniscule halt between the ‘n’s.

“No,” she said, wondering why she was still sitting on the couch next to him and not standing on the other side of the room making him tea where it would have been safer.

“You seem nervous,” he said without inflection. She wanted him to stop saying that, because it was starting to feel true.

“I just haven’t had a guy in my apartment,” she said. Then added, “in a while,” as if it would make it sound better. And then, desperate to salvage the nervous babble she kept spewing, “just since I moved here.”

She bit the inside of her cheek before it got any worse. It was already pretty bad. Anna had rarely, if ever, been so tongue-tied talking to anyone, let alone a man.

“When did you move here?” he asked, by all accounts unaffected by her oversharing. She had to give it a moment, to remember what day it was.

“Back in February. So, a little more than eight months ago,” she replied, forcing herself to keep a light tone.

“Your Czech is good,” he said, leaning back where he sat, crossing his legs at the ankle. “You do well with the accent.”

Anna decided to follow his example and relieve her back of her uncomfortable posture, so she nestled down into the crease between the armrest and the cushion behind her.

“I should know more,” she admitted, feeling herself relax a little bit now that her back wasn’t contorted. “Most of the time, people assume I’m a tourist. It’s good if I want better service, though.”

He kept his eyes straight ahead, except for a few quick glances when either of them were speaking. Jared chuckled. She expected a cough, but none came.

She pulled her legs up onto the cushion and crossed them, inadvertently brushing his leg with her knee in the process. She would have considered it an accident, but she couldn’t be sure she could use that excuse anymore. She couldn’t bring herself to move away and break that tiniest of contacts, either, so she pretended not to notice.

“It’s not an easy language. You just need to speak it with confidence. That can go a long way,” he said, resting his hands on his knees.  “It would probably help to have someone to practice with.

Her brain overflowed with imagery of them laughing over tea and practicing grammar in her living room, or at a coffee shop, like in a corny dating website commercial. The room was very warm. Either from nerves, or from the radiator’s normal fluctuations in temperature, now hovering around sweltering. Either way, she was starting to sweat under the blanket. She was too self-aware to take it off, now, though. So she stewed beneath it.

“Yeah, probably, but I don’t talk to a lot of people outside of work. Except Miss Sofie across the hall, but she’s Russian,” she said, trying to subtly fan herself with the edge of the blanket, get some fresh air circulating underneath it. A bead of sweat started rolling down between her breasts. “I’m a bit better at Russian, but not great. She’s very patient.”

“It must be lonely, not having anyone to talk to,” he said, quieter. She looked over to him and found his eyes already on her. She blanched.

“I’ve got Mariuska,” she forced out, and then looked around. “Somewhere.”

The cat hadn’t come out of the bedroom, and her bowl was still sitting on the floor in the kitchen. The few times Anna had other people in her apartment, Mari had been vivacious and overly-familiar, no matter how little she was encouraged.

“There’s no one else?” he asked. She wasn’t looking at him but out of the corner of her eye she saw the hand on his leg move. His pinky, nail clean, stretched out and touched her blanket, and her thigh underneath. Her heart pounded in her temples and between her legs. Her reaction was disproportionate to what he did, but entirely out of her control. Anna’s eyes were now locked in place, watching that digit.

“No, but, I mean, it’s fine though.” She could feel her body make the most microscopic adjustments, almost straining to get closer to him without moving. Alarm bells rang, let her know she was failing to keep her distance. The fear that, somewhere, deep down, she’d wanted something to happen, piled shame on top of the apprehension over what he was going to say next.

“That’s unfortunate… you’re something special, Anna. Rare and wonderful.”

She was boiling under the blanket, flushed and uncomfortable with his praise.

“I’m not… ugh... please don’t say that,” she said as the guilt finally managed to part the fog. “I’m sorry, Nomak, I shouldn’t be here. I should leave you to sleep.”

“Wait-” he said, touching her arm, catching the blanket. It fell off of her shoulders, expelling the cloud of accumulated body heat from underneath it like an exorcised spirit.

Nomak sucked in a greedy breath through his nose and groaned when he let it out.

The sound of that deep, involuntary vocalization shot through her like a jolt from a car battery, hot and frenetic.

Half-poised with her hand braced on the armrest, that moment hovered in the air between them, and though she was fully clothed, she felt totally naked.

By the way he was looking at her, eyes heavily lidded, staring as if drunk, or high, she might as well have been. His mouth was open, upper teeth showing bright and sharp as he panted.

She was paralyzed when he leaned toward her and took her face in his hands. His palms were a shock of ice on her feverish cheeks when he guided her gently back down onto the couch, drew her face toward his. His lips touched hers, and she didn’t stop him. His mouth was cool and moist, and she had the presence of mind to wonder why he wasn’t as overly warm as she was.

Anna sucked in a deep, ravenous breath through her nostrils, slave to the mindless urge to fill her lungs with his smell.

The smoke and grease of the city was gone. All that was left was that elusive, somehow familiar scent she’d caught before.

She opened her mouth to him and the smell became a taste. Moist and smooth when his tongue slipped through her lips and teeth, and… earthy. As he pressed into her, pinning her between his body and the armrest, her arm slipped around his shoulders to hold him closer.

And then she knew what it was.

She smelled it every day at work, enough that she’d gotten used to it and could tune it out.

It was blood. Old, slightly-off blood. Like some that had spilled somewhere unseen and was forgotten about.

It was diluted but unmistakable. Sweet, and faintly rotten. He was saturated with it. It was coming out of his pores, his lungs expelled it with every cool breath that buffeted her face. She could taste it in his saliva.

Her every sense was dominated by it.

“Nomak,” she grunted a muffled plea. His answer was a throaty rumble before he sealed her mouth with his. His slippery tongue filled her mouth, rasped and probed the inside of her cheeks where the skin was raw from her nervous biting, abraded it until it stung. His scar was a hard line against her chin. She could feel his pulse through it.

She knew, deep down, what was happening. An innate instinct kicked in, something triggered by the recognition of that scent, that told her she was in danger. She knew what he was, and that he wasn’t human.

Maybe on some level she’d known right away. Human rational denial was a powerful thing, and so was attraction. Anna didn’t want to run. She wanted more of this.

His sharp teeth scraped her upper lip and left shallow lacerations that made it tender, charged everything with the sharp tang of metal. Heat, excited by the sting, sank deep and heavy between her legs.

She choked against his mouth, clawed his back through the fabric of his hoodie, arched her upper body against him. She couldn’t think.

“Jared, _prosím_ ,” she whimpered in Czech. _Please_. She needed to slow down for a second, get a hold of herself.

He growled. His cold, hard fingers threaded through the hair on her scalp, gripped her tight, and tugged her head back.

The shock of sweet pain raced in shivers down her spine, dispelling her urge for temperance, and tightened like a fist around her groin.

Anna lost control of her composure, and moaned, deep and throaty, into the air between them. Then there was only the sound of Nomak’s ragged breaths, and her helpless panting.

He let go of her hair, but her scalp still sang where he'd pulled it. He was still draped against her, breathing against her neck, stealing little tastes of her skin with his pointed tongue.

“Nomak,” she gasped, hands knotting in his hoodie, halfway between pushing him off and pulling him closer, thighs squirming. “This is a bad idea.”

“Yes,” he said, scraping his sharp upper teeth over her skin, jaw quivering, tongue painting her throat with spit. “If you tell me to leave, I will.”

It was too late for that. It was too late for anything but the way this was going. Anna had made a dire mistake, but she was starting to not care anymore.

Maybe this time would be different. She wanted it to be.

“Please don’t leave,” she moaned when his hand slid down to her breast and squeezed, his other wedged around behind her back and clamped her body tight against his. She grabbed a handful of his hoodie material and felt the firm ridge of muscle and spine through it. “Just... please don’t turn me into one.”

There was a suspended beat when he stopped mouthing against her skin. He pulled back, let go of her, his large hands hovering uncertainly in the air in front of her.

“... What?” Nomak said in a voice like coarse-grain sandpaper.

She could see through her hazy, lust-drunk eyes that he’d changed. He looked more drawn and sickly than the first time she saw him.

Dark veins were clearly visible, rivers of brackish green threaded beneath the washed-out skin of his neck and face. The pallor had encroached on the healthy pink hue he’d had at the beginning of the evening, and the shadows had crept back into his eye sockets. White corneas with sharp, pinpoint pupils shone bright from the bruised-looking skin around them.

The change was startling, and Anna should have been frightened.

She took a moment to breathe, and let her thoughts come back to her, slowly. Her lips felt swollen and tender, and so did the slick flesh between her legs, aching and tight. She gripped the armrest of the couch and, shaking like a leaf in a breeze, she pushed herself to her feet.

“Please, just say you won’t,” she said, tremulous and out of breath. She licked her lips where he’d kissed her, and where his teeth had abraded the soft skin.

“I… uh…” Nomak started, faltered. He was at a loss. The tension started to bleed out of his face and confusion took its place.

Anna ran her hands through her hair, wiped her sweaty palms on the thigh of her black jeans.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she whispered. The word felt alien on her lips, but had never been more appropriate. She jammed the heels of her palms against her eye sockets and groaned before peeking, her eyes fixed straight ahead at the wall over the couch. “I can’t believe it’s happening again.”

Nomak’s fearsome face softened in profound bafflement as he fell back against the couch. Anna could barely take her eyes off him, even now. His legs were splayed open, and her eyes immediately went to the partial erection under his soft black pants, an involuntary, stolen glance. And then to his pink, pointed tongue as it licked along his bottom lip, tonguing it, swallowing hard.

“ _Again_? Are you telling me... you know?” he growled, cutting into her with his bloodshot stare. “You know I’m not human?”

“It’s not like I’m an expert about this or anything, but, I mean... it's obvious," she said with a frantic gesture toward him. _"_ _Look_ at you."

Nomak looked down at one of his hands, and then the other as if he'd just noticed how pale he was. He groaned and curled forward with his forehead cupped in his palm.

"I mean you could still pass for human, but you've been dropping hints all night. I'm such an idiot for ignoring them. And _you_ ," she said, pointing a shaking finger at him. "You didn't lie once, you sneaky bastard, but you didn't say anything straight up, either."

"Anna," he said, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "I'm not going to hurt you. But please, tell me what you know."

Anna believed him, but couldn't stop herself.  She was shaky limbed with adrenaline as she paced and tried to wrap her head around what was sitting in her living room.

“You can't blame me, you’re nothing like that slimeball from the club. How am I supposed to know all the different kinds?” She rubbed her face, trying to rid herself of the memory and the way it still made her skin crawl to think of it.

“What are you talking about? What club?” Nomak was clearly having difficulties stringing a sentence together. Anna felt like she would have been far more justified to be speechless.

“Look… there’s a reason I haven’t gone out much, man. I thought maybe… I thought it was a one-off. I was _just_  starting to get past it, too, so thanks for that.”

Anna pinched the bridge of her nose.

“What happened to you?” he asked.  Anna cast him a bitter glare. She started pacing, toying with her gauged earring.

Three strides from the edges of the coffee table to the place where the kitchen linoleum met the thread-worn carpet of the living area, three strides back, until she felt herself working out some of the nervous energy. She gnawed at one black-painted fingernail until the lacquer started to flake off.

“I wasn’t always a shut-in, you know. After I moved here, I tried to be social. I needed a fresh start after… well, everything before. I wanted to meet some people, make friends. Asked around about dance clubs until I found one that played better music than the others. It was a goth club, or a fetish club or something like that. It would’ve been my scene back home. But there was some... messed-up stuff going on inside, and it made me uncomfortable. So, I left. Someone followed me out.”

She shuddered when she remembered that walk home. The way she kept looking back behind her on her way from the nightclub and didn’t see anything until it was almost too late, just like in a crime drama.

“A vampire...?” Nomak asked. He sounded concerned. Anna avoided looking at him. She could still taste him in her mouth, and tried to swallow it down.

“Yeah. But I didn't know. It was just some Matrix-wannabe toolbag in a black trench coat that tried to follow me to the metro station. He cornered me in an alley. Asked me if I wanted to live forever… his eyes were…” she scraped off more nail polish with her teeth, looking toward the couch, but not seeing it. “Red. Not like contacts, either. Real. Like yours, but... worse. I thought he was going to rape me, but then I saw the teeth. No implants look like that. I try to be a realist, I didn’t believe in that stuff before. But… confronted face-to-face with it...”

She closed her eyes and shook out the chill that oozed down her spine.

“What did you do...?” Nomak asked, dropping his arm and sitting forward a little, listening with rapt attention. Anna scowled.

“I pepper sprayed him in the face. Barely did anything to him, though. It might as well have been water. But it surprised him, and then I ran.” She started picking at a frayed spot on the thigh of her jeans. “I didn't leave the house for a week. It took me a month before I could walk farther than the corner store and get some real groceries. Two months before I made myself get a job.”

It was all pouring out of her, now, everything she’d kept to herself since it had happened. She hadn't said a word of it to anyone. Instead, she’d chosen to try and process it on her own. But there was Jared Nomak, _whatever_ he was, attentive and listening in silence that felt tense.

"I'm... so sorry, Anna," he said, and she realized the tension was anger. She didn't let him interrupt.

“It took me six months, _six months,_ Jared, before I could go outside at night. And only because Dmitri put me on second shift and didn’t give me a choice. Things were fine. I didn’t go out or put myself at risk. I didn’t go near that club again, and I didn’t run into that guy again, it was fine. I guess I’d hoped there was only one of him. I’ve thought about it and there had probably been more at that club... not that it matters, apparently, when I bring a damn vampire back to my apartment.”

“I’m _not_ a vampire,” he said, his lips curling back distastefully around the word, flashing his teeth, sharp but straight. If nothing else, that confirmed the most notable difference, to her, between Jared and the monster she'd met that night.

A flash of light caught her eye and she looked into the dark bedroom. A pair of eyes, glowing green with reflected light, peered out from under her bed. Mariuska. She’d forgotten about her. The cat had apparently been a bit faster than Anna on the uptake as far as her guest was concerned. She thought about trying to coax her out, but decided she might be better off where she was.

“Then what are you? I don’t even know why I’m asking, I don’t care,” she said, leaving the creature sitting on her couch with her tea mug in a shaking hand.  

“I’m something else. Something worse,” came the answer from her couch. She scoffed, too overwhelmed for the faint twinge of fear she felt in response to that to take precedence over everything else. “I’m truly sorry that happened to you, Anna.”

Her chest ached, she was hurt and angry with herself. Maybe she was too wired and dealing with the culmination of sexual frustration and all the guilt she’d laid on herself to be scared, because she wasn’t. More than anything, she felt like an idiot. It felt like she’d been made a fool of, and she hadn’t been in on it.

She poured the lukewarm chamomile into her mug, accidentally splashing it over the side, all over her hand and the counter. She didn’t even know if he liked tea, or if he’d just said that because she’d asked.

“Do you even like me, Nomak? Or did you say what I wanted to hear, just so you could get me alone?” Her heart pounded as she took a swallow of the herbal tea. She felt his eyes burning into her back, or maybe it was just her imagination.

“Yeah I like you. And yeah... I wanted to get you alone.” The last part was said with a husky drop in tone that caused an involuntary shudder to go through her and tighten in her gut. “Everything I told you was true... except for the tea. And the hotdog. I’m sorry, but I threw that away when you weren’t looking.”

Anna uttered a short laugh and turned back toward him. He was standing now with his arms at his sides, looking very much like the awkward man who’d followed her out of the subway station the night before. Just veinier, and with a keen, sharp look to his stare. His hood was even up, not once had he left the refuge of it.

“Was it so you could drink my blood? Or something else?” she asked, her heart in her throat, white-knuckle gripping the mug as she waited to hear what exactly she’d brought into her home.

“I don’t hunt humans, Anna. And I wasn’t- I didn’t want to hurt you. I just wanted…” he groaned, scrubbed his hands over his eyes.

“You just wanted what?” she demanded, taking a step forward.

“You,” he answered in a heavy exhale, deflating slightly. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his hoodie, which had become partially unzipped during their activities. A wedge of pale chest peeked between the metal teeth when his arms tugged on it.

Anna took a hard swallow of her tea, spilling some down her chin.

“What do you eat, then?” she asked, eyeing him. Her instinct screamed for attention, urged her to consider, maybe, possibly, trying to get away from him, but Anna didn’t feel threatened. At least, he certainly wasn’t acting threatening.

“Vampires,” he said without looking at her. He was scuffing his toes on her thread-worn carpeted floor.

A hunter of hunters, she thought.  Enemy of my enemy, and all. Whatever he was... she was still attracted to him. She couldn’t really do anything about it. There wasn’t the same guilt that had come along with it before, either, just a surreal sense of disbelief.

“You don’t want to kill me?” she said.

“No,” he answered, meeting her eyes. “I really don’t. I just… wanted to be near you. And then you kept asking me to stay, and… I didn’t want to say no.”

“You want me,” she stated, pulling the thread out of the worn spot on her jeans until it made a small hole.

“Yes,” he said, closing his eyes. His mouth tightened in a brief grimace, the scar under his chin pulled taut and dimpled. “So much.”

She pulled on another thread, chewed on her lip.

“Okay,” she said. Jared looked up at her from under his hood, wide-eyed.

“What did you say?”

Anna raked her hands through her hair and then did it a second time as she tried to find the words to say what she couldn’t believe she was about to say.

“Fine. This is _so_ messed up... but yeah, okay. Look…” she walked over to him and set her mug down on the coffee table. Her cheeks were burning but she didn’t bother trying to hide it anymore. “I don’t want you to leave. I’m not that hard-up for company, I swear. But... “ she groaned and wrung her hands together. “You’re... _really_ hot. I’ve always been into the weird, quiet ones... but, you’re also nice. And…”

She growled, trying to find the words and the courage to ask what she wanted to know. “And... I don’t know. I’m crazy. I just want to know... is everything... like… normal?” she motioned to the general area of his middle. “There?”

Nomak’s mouth hung slack. She could see his tongue glistening behind his teeth as he thought it over.

“Yeah,” he said with a quick, toothy grin. He was already breathing hard and loud through his nose, his sharp eyes honed in on her mouth. “Mostly.”

She didn’t know how she was supposed to take that, so she laughed. Nomak’s gratified, smile was at once charming and unsettling.

Anna turned toward him with her arms hugged to her body, chewing on her labret piercing as she looked him over. She’d thought he was cute before. Now?

She reached toward his face. He stood stock still, eyes darting from her eyes to her hand, like a nervous wild animal. She slipped her outstretched palm between his face and his hood and, reaching due to his height, pushed it back slowly.

It fell down around his shoulders, showing a smooth, hairless head, as pale and riddled with veins as the rest of what she could see of his skin. He looked almost completely different from the man who gave her coffee earlier in the evening. Sharper, more dangerous, except for his reserved demeanor. That was the same.

Without thinking about it first, she drew her fingers down over his ear, and to the corner of his jaw. His skin was cool to the touch. Nomak’s hooded eyes regarded her, slightly unfocused, breathing audibly through his open mouth.

“You're taking this really well,” he rasped as she followed the line of his jaw with her fingertips.

“It'll probably hit me later,” she admitted.

He closed his eyes when her thumb touched his chin and brushed over the scar. Beneath the pad of her thumb, the puckered skin of his scar rippled and darkened like a bruise against the surrounding skin.

Nomak shuddered and a sound stuttered from deep in his chest, somewhere between a growl and a whimper. Anna’s breath caught in her throat. It didn't feel like scar tissue. It felt very much alive. And apparently, it felt good to have it touched.

“What is this?” she asked, wanting to keep her voice low for some reason, as if she were afraid she might startle him and he'd run away. She drew her thumb down his chin and followed the line where it continued under his jaw. She felt his throat bob under her touch. Nomak’s head tipped toward the ceiling, his eyes rolled back beneath his heavy lids. The vertical marking stretched, reacted to her touch along the long line of his exposed throat.

“For… procreation. To make more, like me. But…” he swallowed hard and Anna stared, transfixed. It looked like it wanted to split, or reopen. It unnerved her, so she withdrew her hand, rubbed her fingers together. Nomak looked back down at her and let out a cold, shaky breath. “I don't use it for that,” he said with a little more ease. “One of me is enough.”

“There's just you?” she asked. She was trembling, but not from fear.

He licked his lips and then leaned forward, hands still in his pockets. She turned her face up and their mouths came together, warm against cool. She parted her lips and their saliva mingled together until all she could taste was him.

It wasn't just old blood, she realized. There was something more to that smell and taste, something she didn't have a name for. An essence, or perhaps some kind of olfactory quality that hit the back of her nose, something that was just him. It made her skin tingle and her mouth water, and she slipped her arms up around his neck to pull him closer.

He stumbled forward a half step, as if unbalanced by her hold, and then his hands were out of his pockets and slipping around her waist. His fingers gripped her through the material of her shirt and tightened, like he wanted to squeeze her.

Anna sighed and then his tongue, at first darting and tentative, pushed farther in.

And then it split.

Anna had dated a guy once, a musician, who’d had his tongue split surgically like a snake. It was interesting, to say the least, and she'd been pretty into it at the time. This was not like that. Nomak's tongue, at first pointed and thick, came unraveled like a bundle of rope fibers. Fleshy, slippery tendrils squirmed against the surfaces of her mouth, moving independently as if governed by separate wills, undulated and caressed her probing tongue.

She gasped and pulled back, breaking the kiss in time to see the mass of tiny tongues slip back behind his lips. Nomak was breathing hard, swallowing thickly.

“Sorry,” he started, clearing his throat. “I should have warned you.”

“Just… give me a second,” she said, shaking her head and gripping his hoodie tight. She ran her tongue over her teeth. Her pulse throbbed in her ears and everything between her legs tightened as she tried to come to terms with what exactly she was getting into.

Nomak leaned forward and took a deep, shaky breath by her ear that tickled the tiny hairs there and sent shivers cascading down her arms.

“You might like to know what I can do with it,” he whispered, sliding his hands up her back, bunching the shirt fabric. Anna’s back flexed under his touch, and she hugged her arms around his neck tight, pressing her breasts against him. Through the hoodie she could feel hard ridges, like ribs but more pronounced, and knew it was something else she might need to be prepared for. But there was also muscle.

His fingers dug into her back. One hand slid up to the back of her neck, the other slid lower to the base of her spine. Fingertips left burning trails like firebrands and Anna uttered a choked noise.

His lips and teeth scraped the skin at the corner of her jaw, and then her neck. Her head lolled back and Nomak started sucking at the skin of her throat, licking the salt from her sweat.

His fingers snaked through her hair at the back of her head, and then tightened, gripping it at the roots.

He gave it a good tug, and sent a gout of fire straight to her pussy. She moaned and her knees buckled. Nomak held her tight, snarling against her neck like an animal as his tongue devoured every taste from the surface of her skin.

And then he was lifting her, carrying her without breaking his mouth away.

Anna barely saw that he was taking her to the bedroom before he tossed her. She was airborne for only a second before she hit the bed harmlessly and bounced, laughing, limbs flailing. Nomak stood in the doorway for a second, grinning viciously. He moved forward, so fast, and landed heavily on the bed poised over her, jolting her against him. The bed creaked beneath the impact, and she caught sight of a white fuzzy blur as Mari shot out from under it. With a startled hiss, she darted into the next room, clearly considering it a safer refuge.

Anna’s hands worked frantically at his zipper, but he shoved her shirt up and then bowed to put his mouth over every inch of newly exposed skin, grunting with his wanton appetite. Anna gave up on the hoodie and settled for holding his head against her.

She spread her legs, her hips already writhing for contact against his torso as he pushed her shirt over her bra. She grabbed the tee shirt and tugged it over her head, and then he was pushing the cups up to get to her breasts, eager and impatient. A hard arm slid around her back to hold her to him.

She barely had a moment to catch her breath when his smooth mouth dragged over her breast, hand gripping the soft skin. And then she felt his tongue, pointed and firm, swiping over the hard bead of flesh. Anna yanked her bra off without messing with the hooks, but then her arms stayed there thrown over her head, gripping the comforter in fistfuls while she suffered under his sweet attentions.

He scraped teeth against the puckered nub of her nipple and Anna’s hips bucked against him with a wordless grunt. The hand around her back slid back to her navel, and then down. He sucked on her breast, doing obscene things with his tongue while his other hand went to her groin. Anna brought one of her knuckles to her mouth and bit down.

“Fuck,” she groaned around her bent finger. “Fuck fuck fuck- Nomak-”

He grabbed her groin through her jeans, tight, jolting the swollen tender skin through the denim. She was so wet she could feel herself sliding around in her underwear. And then he began to squeeze and knead the hot center between her thighs. His hand was firm but the sensation was dulled by the thick material of her pants to the point that the build-up was torturously slow. He moved his ministrations to the other breast, rumbling as he worked her pussy through the layers of clothing.

She grabbed handfuls of his hoodie, what she could reach on his upper back, and tugged, desperate to disrobe him. After a second he got the hint and pulled back, breaking contact between her skin and his mouth.

Kneeling on her bed over her with ragged breaths, Nomak watched her as he unzipped his hoodie and shrugged it off. Anna's hands went to her jeans and she scrambled to wiggle out of them. When she glanced up at him, her hands faltered at the sight of him, the waist of her pants stalled over the curve of one hip.

He leaned forward on one hand and rested the other on her bare stomach, watching her with subdued intensity, square jaw tight as she took him in with her hands and eyes. She needed both senses to believe it.

She ran her hand from the pronounced collarbones she'd seen earlier, a feature she was always drawn to in people, over the prominent ridges of his chest. The muscle was there, but pulled taut over ribs that stood out too far, with a prominent trench in between, over his breastbone.

Her eyes followed her hand as she pulled it down to his smooth, muscular stomach. Every blood vessel near the surface was visible under his pallid, mottled skin, blue and deceptively fragile-looking. She slipped her palm over the waistband of his black pants to his crotch and immediately met something hard.

That felt normal enough. Now looking back up to Nomak’s face, which hovered over her with breathless anticipation and a predatory shine in his stare, she gripped his erection through the soft material of his pants and squeezed. He grunted and pushed his hips down hard onto her hand.

“Are you still sure you want to do this?” he growled, dipping his face down into the corner between her neck and shoulder. He murmured against her neck something she didn’t understand and his teeth grazed the skin, light enough to make her strain for more contact.

She kneaded his hard length, and groaned when she felt his fingertips slip between the waistband of her jeans and the skin of her thigh, wedging it farther down.

She helped, and when an errant fingertip brushed over the soaked crotch of her black panties, she almost forgot what she was doing. With an enthusiastic tug, he peeled her pants down her thighs and past her calves, and tossed them on the floor behind them. He was over her again, nuzzling and licking, and his hand was creeping to her pussy, exposed but for the thin layer of cotton.

“Condom. Top drawer.”

Jared paused for only half a beat before he was stretching, reaching over and past her to her bedside table, sinews of his muscles pulling tight, she ran her hands over them and brought her lips to his nipple, now within her reach. The strained noise he made was intensely gratifying, so she tongued it harder, kneading his firm dick through his pants.

He felt… large. She hoped the condoms she had fit. She heard the rustling of plastic as he tore open the brand new box, so embarrassingly symbolic of her level of optimism back when she’d first moved.

He shifted his leg forward so that his knee nestled in the crook of her groin and pushed against it, teasing. She clamped her thighs around it tight.

By the time he came back, a little foil packet gripped absurdly between his fingers, he was panting.

His chin mark was dark, swollen. She wrapped her hand around his neck and brought her lips to it. She stroked her tongue along the line of it, no longer frightened. Perhaps even excited by the way it reacted to her touch. It felt like a sexual response, recognizable even for the alien nature of it.

Jared’s response was a guttering growl with his teeth bared. He slipped his arm around her back and tipped his lips down to meet hers. And then he pulled himself upright, drawing her with him. His cock strained against the fabric of his pants and jabbed her in the belly.

He helped her kneel like he was, pressed front to front, and she scrambled to unbutton his pants, running her fingertips under the waistband to feel the hard lines of his waist the the jut of his hipbones. She tugged the zipper down and plunged her hand inside, uttering a choked noise at the same time he did. His organ was marbled white like the rest of him, and thick, but otherwise, Anna was relieved that there were no surprises in that regard, except for the way it was cool to the touch. Unnerving, but no less intriguing.

She tried to stroke him, all of him, but Nomak’s attentions with his teeth and tongue were doing their best to distract her. She felt the pressure of a bite, hard enough to leave a mark without breaking the skin, and she crumpled, held to him by his arm.

His hand slid down to her ass. He broke his bite on her neck only long enough to tear open the rubber packet with his teeth with an enthusiastic grunt. His hand brushed by hers on his cock and when she felt him unroll the sheath, she left him to it and started working to alleviate the pressure between her legs, rolling her clit beneath her fingers. She was almost shocked with how wet she was. Almost.

He let her fall back on the bed with a bounce and began kissing down her throat, nipping a breast on the way, over the curve of her ribs, to her navel. Anna knew what he was going for and she spread her thighs, straining and stretching her hips. She was burning up, even though the room was chilly, and Nomak’s saliva left a trail behind his mouth that was cool enough to make her shiver. She fixated on the way his tongue was starting to snake out and lick the skin of her lower belly. She could feel him pulling his pants off the rest of the way, kicking them to the floor behind him.

She looked down between her breasts to see Jared hunched over, crouched on his knees, face hovering over the material of her panties, watching her with a savage desire.

His spine stood out with sharp ridges, and over his shoulder blades were two gashes in his skin, crescent-shaped facing outward, that looked raw and pink as the inside of a mouth.

Short, dull spines jutted from the tissue, and the back of his ribs rippled in pronounced ridges much like the front. She followed the spiny bones down the center of his back to his bare ass and she found that she didn’t care anymore. She’d been with enough freaks and societal outliers that she was already starting to get used to the way he looked.

Grinning, Jared wet his lips with his tongue, and then the pointed dip darted down and swiped up the seam of her labia through her underwear. Anna bucked, clawing her nails up her own thighs and leaving red lines behind in the skin, as much incensed by the teasing sensation as the sight of him doing it.

He did it again, curling his lips back to show his teeth and Anna choked out a whimper, squirming for more.

Jared’s right arm started working beneath him, and she realized that he was tugging on his cock. He closed his entire mouth over the crotch of her panties, shocking her with the sensation of cool against the boiling temperature of her vulva. He began tonguing her through them, rumbling in his throat so she felt the vibrations straight to her clit.

The entirety of her nervous system seemed centered between her legs and Nomak was working it into a frenzy, jerking himself off as he shamelessly mouthed her. He sucked the moisture out of the fabric before dragging his tongue deeper into the cleft, pushing the fibers against her oversensitive flesh.

Anna’s hands slid to the sides of his face and then to the back of his smooth head. Her hips started moving in time with his tongue. The swollen ache was turning into burning, and she felt her pussy muscles tighten, and she knew she was going to come.

Nomak uttered a bestial growl, breaths rushing in and out of his noise fast and shallow. He burrowed his head between the seam of her thigh and crotch, and worked the elastic leg of her panties aside with his face and teeth.

Then it was his bared mouth against the swollen, slippery folds of her cunt. He made open-mouthed sounds of appreciation, and by the gentle shaking of the bed in time with his arm, she knew he was enjoying it almost as much as she was.

His tongue, slick and ropy and cool, squirmed between her labia and Anna was now making a noise with every breath, like a wordless question or plea, something she was sure the neighbors would be able to hear, if they hadn’t heard everything already. She was outright humping against his face now, mashing the delicate, swollen flesh against the surfaces of his face and mouth. And then she felt his tongue unravel, splitting into the snaky bundle of fleshy fibers.

All at once, his lips were clamped over her, and every surface within reach of his mouth became a roiling, squirming bed of a thousand tiny tongues plucking and swirling against her naked vulva. She felt the arm he was using on himself move faster, and his other hand, once braced on the bed crept down and slipped over the underside of her thigh and squeezed to the point of pain.

Anna cried out and bucked, and at that moment, she felt the writhing mass of his tongue slurp into the hole of her tight cunt. Grunting, Nomak jackhammered her insides with his monstrous appendage, thick at the base so that the rough surface slide against every tiny ridge and contour.

The tightening pressure that had been building in her spine and lower belly, and in every tender nerve-ending between her legs eclipsed in a flash of liquid fire, and Anna let go of a shuddering moan, choked off with each receding aftershock.

She pulled on his face, yanked it back up toward her mouth, and Jared obliged, pausing in his masturbation to slide his body forward over hers. His face was wet, and warm, and tangy sweet. Now when she kissed him, all she could taste was herself. She dragged her nails down his sinewy sides and pulled his hips down against her.

Nomak kissed down to her neck, and gripping his dick at the base, guided it between her legs. He paused with the head poised at the entrance so that he could bring his hands back to her face, twisting his fingers in her hair. Anna hooked her legs around his and lay tense and still, fighting the urge to writhe.

With his bloodshot white eyes looking into hers, Jared pushed his hips into her. His cock slid in halfway, stretching her, before he pulled out again.

He growled and rolled his hips into her again, farther, and Anna squirmed beneath him, holding him against her with an arm thrown over his upper back. She felt the spines sitting amidst the mass of pink flesh against her forearm, and it made her think of a metalhead with a spiked jacket.

His fist tightened in her hair and he started pushing into her all the way, jolting her with delicious pain with the impact. His every breath was a growl, exhaled into her open mouth with a sharp smile and a thirsty dart of his tongue. He rammed into her again and Anna cried out, still sensitive from her first orgasm. She could feel the walls of her gripping him, tightening hungrily around his shaft as it churned her insides, sucking out and plunging in again with a hard jolt that made her clit throb, almost painfully so.

He wrapped himself around her, crushed her tight against him and his hips started working in jerky, short thrusts that worked together to build up the warmth in her cunt from the friction. Her pussy muscles almost convulsed tightening and loosening independent of Anna’s will. Nomak moaned and kissed her. Then he drew back, dragging his hands over her breasts and belly and hips until he was kneeling upright, clamping her thighs around his waist with unwavering strength.

Anna cupper her own breasts to keep them from jolting too much, watching him with heavily lidded eyes. She licked the outside of her mouth to find every trace of his, and her, taste.

Nomak held her by her legs and moved forward into her, hitting her deep and with a breathless noise half-laughing half-groaning, he curved his middle forward again, pulling her hard onto him.

And again, slapping harder against her skin so that the ripples traveled through her entire body. She twisted at her nipples, and the sensations crashed into the deep ache of Nomak buried inside of her.

He started going faster, sinking into her moist pussy and snarling with each brutal plunge.

Anna’s core gripped around him, tightening like a fist. His eyes flashed, and the scar under his chin rippled. Before her eyes, it started to open, just a small breach underneath his bottom lip, behind which glistened wet darkness.

Anna watched it, hiccuping and crying out every time the head of his cock struck that place deep inside of her, barely aware when her own hand slipped between her legs and started working furiously around her clit.

Her spine tensed and tightened and she threw her head back. The impending orgasm sang in her veins like an injection of electricity that crackled between the place where their bodies met, a lightning strike on the verge of happening.

She tipped over the edge, hoarsely calling his name, and crashed into a boneless, molten, whimpering puddle, limp in his grip. He slowed for a moment, watching her come with wonder in his sunken gaze and on the vicious grin on his lips.

He stroked her thigh and started again as her climax subsided, slow and relentless, pumping into her, his bony-ridged chest heaving, delaying the comedown with his steady repetition.

His upper body fell forward, arched over her like a shell as his hips worked, and he sucked the accumulating sweat from her face and neck, burrowed his head in her hair.

She could feel the vibrations of a low growl building in him. He pushed into her to the base, and then with a sound that came from deep within his chest, he bore her down into the mattress and she could feel his dick pulsing inside the condom as he came, buried deep inside of her with his breath in her ear.

She could feel her thighs trembling as they fell open on either side of him. She couldn’t help it, and she couldn’t stop it. The ridges of his ribs were digging into her chest, almost painfully, but she didn’t want to let go of him just yet.

Jared was making small throaty noises, planting kisses on the shell of her ear, the stretched lobe, her jaw, her neck, gentle enough to tickle. Giddy from the post-orgasmic euphoria, Anna giggled and squirmed, trapped beneath him as he tormented her with the soft touches of his lips.

“You busy this weekend?” Anna asked him breathlessly. Nomak chuckled against her throat.

“No, I don’t think so,” he answered before pushing himself up on one arm. He held the base of his cock as he pulled it out of her so the cool air hit the tender flesh between her legs, almost sore for how sensitive it was after everything. She could still feel tiny aftershocks in the muscles.

She needed new underwear.

“You want to stay over still?” she asked, biting her lip, watching him hold the condom on as he scooted on his knees to the edge of the bed. He was still wearing his socks with the holes in the toes, and something about that made her heart tighten with longing.

“Yes, if you haven’t changed your mind,” he said with a secret smile. He walked into the bathroom, and she appreciated the view of the back of him, spinal ridges and weird shoulder blade things and all. He had a nice, firm butt, too. With a dopey smile, she watched him peel the condom off, careful with the reservoir full of his cum, and knot it at the base. He looked around for a second.

“Trash under the sink,” she said. As he complied, first wrapping the condom in toilet paper, she couldn’t help but revel in the contentment. She had a man in her apartment. He wasn’t human, but he was definitely a man. Nothing about this was normal, but in a way she felt more like her old self than she had for the better part of a year. Well, except for the fact that she’d never had sex like that before, with someone who was so _good_ at it, and so thoroughly into her. It wasn’t exactly fair to the people she’d been with before him, though.

She rolled into a languid stretch with her head at the foot of the bed and lay there on her side. She watched him as he came back into the bedroom and climbed onto the bed, compressing the mattress with his weight. He dipped down for a kiss and stroked her hair.

“Your cat is upset,” he said with exaggerated gravity. Anna remembered the white streak leaving her room and groaned with a laugh.

“Poor Mariuska,” she sighed. “She probably thought I was being murdered… in fact, the neighbors probably thought so, too.”

“Sorry,” he said with a sly, thoroughly unapologetic look on his face.

“I’ll just give them all gift baskets,” she said with a stupid snort. “Mari will get over it.”

“I hope so,” he said, crawling to lay next to her, facing her with his head rested on his arm.

Anna had a lot of questions. She didn’t want to ruin the moment, though. Nomak looked… more at ease than she’d yet seen him, lying completely naked on her bed without his hoodie to hide in. All of the internal turmoil, her guilt and uncertainties, had culminated in such a perfect sense of peace, even with the throbbing mess of nerves still humming between her legs.

It felt like a fragile, precious thing, and she wanted to hold onto it a little longer.

He stayed silent, looking at her, then reached out with his arm and stroked her side along the curve of her ribs to her hip. She shivered against his cold touch. Somehow, the heat from the radiator in the next room didn’t reach her in here, and now that she was coming down from everything, she felt a little too cold.

Nomak didn’t say anything, or ask. He just pushed himself up and reached over her body. He grabbed the edge of her comforter and drew it over her. Before he could close her in, she wiggled closer to him, tangled her legs in his and made him stay under the covers with her. He let go of a soft sigh of relief. Holding her close, he continued caressing her arm beneath the soft fluffy cover.

Somewhere in the next room, she could hear the small, wet sounds of Mari eating her dinner, finally.

Anna didn’t know when she fell asleep, she just knew she was falling asleep next to a rare and magical unicorn.

 

\-------------------------------------

**3:20 AM, Friday**

At some point in her sleep, Anna had repositioned herself so that her head was on her pillow. When she woke up, facing her clock, it was disorienting at first, but when she felt the hard body curved against her back, she was instantly comforted. Her body heat had gathered under the comforter enough that Nomak didn’t feel cold anymore. In fact, it was a little overly warm.

Maybe that was what had woken her up. She lifted the edge of the blanket to vent some of the heat, but her bladder decided that now was a good time for her to have to get out of bed. Nomak breathed soft and slow and stirred in his sleep.

She headed toward the bathroom, rubbing her bleary eyes. She caught sight of falling shadows toward the window where the street lights flooded through the seam of her curtains. Snowfall. She took a deep, delicious breath and padded over to take a look.

Heavy, feathery flakes drifted straight down. No wind. She could see where the moisture had melted on the metal stairs of the fire escape during the day, and froze again during the night. It was so serene she let herself take a moment to enjoy it. During the day, snow could be an annoyance. But at night, knowing she didn’t have to venture out into it for a few hours, it could just be lovely and nothing else.

She left the view of the stillness down below and went to the bathroom.

Nomak’s coat, grey sweatshirt, scarf, and a black button-up shirt were hanging on the door-hanger towel rack and as she sat on the toilet, she looked at it and smiled. Seeing his things hanging in her bathroom gave her mind license to wander, half-awake, to pleasant thoughts.

He could help her with her Czech. She could listen to him speak it for hours if he wanted, even if she didn’t understand everything perfectly. Maybe they could do it walking about the city. She wondered if he’d be willing to show her some things she’d missed during her voluntary seclusion. She’d barely seen any of the tourist destinations, even the astronomical clock in the old town that Prague was practically known for. If Jared was at her side, quiet and reassuring, she might feel safe enough to go out again.

Maybe this weekend she could suggest it. If he was interested anyway. He might not have thought she was serious when she asked him what he was doing, but she had been. She didn’t want to get ahead of herself, though.

She walked back into the bedroom, which was somehow even darker than it had been before. It was enough that she could feel her brain start to shut down into sleep mode again. She walked to the foot of the bed and started to climb on.

The orange seam of light flooding through the curtains flared on her wall again and Anna realized why the room had seemed so dark. Something had been blocking the light. She looked to the window, alert and searching, but saw nothing.

With a little hesitation, she walked over to it and peered outside, brows pinched in confusion.

Snow gathered tranquilly on the landscape, same as before, though it was starting to let up. Not a thing looked awake at this hour, and the snow on the ground remained untouched, smooth, perfect.

She shook her head. Then she crawled under the duvet and nestled in with Jared, who woke enough to drape his arm over her. She used his other arm as a pillow. He murmured something against her forehead in Czech, some sweet nothing, and Anna fell asleep.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're liking this, let me know :)  
> To be continued...


	4. Friday Morning

**Friday**

She woke in the pre-dawn morning to a warm, delicious feeling spreading in her belly. A gentle flick between her legs roused her the rest of the way. When she saw the shape hiding under her comforter, in the darkness, she thought she was having some vivid, beautiful sex dream. Another liquid caress came soon after.

“Oh,” she said with a sigh and a smile as she remembered the night before, and Nomak’s oral abilities. She stretched languidly, let her thighs fall open, and tilted her hips toward his mouth. The thick, even strokes woke her nerves and sent tingly warmth down to her toes. She might have made a noise that sounded like a croak.

“Good morning,” he said against her thigh. His breath was a cool caress against her warm, drowsy skin. He closed his lips over her, followed by more shameless wet noises and delectable vocalizations, loud enough to hear through the blanket. It felt as though he were injecting her with concentrated sunlight. His upper lip grazed her clit and his tongue, his ridiculously agile tongue, darted into her.

She slipped her hands under the covers and palmed them over his smooth scalp. Her hips jerked when he swiped around and across her nub, and then she was holding him down harder against her.

“Good mor… ahh. You’re... _really_ good at this,” she gasped, thrusting against his mouth when his tongue slipped inside of her again, rippled and stretched at her entrance.

“I’m happy you’re getting something out of it, too,” he said with a touch of humor. It sounded like his mouth was full. She felt the pressure spread and widen and she knew his tongue was splitting. She could feel it writhing and swirling with each individual part until it became one blurred sensation of tight, hot bliss. She held him hard against her as the pleasure rooted itself in her spine. Though she couldn’t see him, an image was seared into her brain from last night, of his tongue lavishing her while his eyes watched her with a hungry look.

It was enough to tip her over the edge.

When she came, it was like rolling downhill half-submerged under a warm blanket of molasses. Anna sighed and moaned softly as Nomak carried her gently to completion on the moist bed of his mouth until she was a pile of smiling, boneless putty on the mattress.

She felt his lips plant a kiss on her inner thigh before he slid his body along hers, bony ribs rubbing against her soft skin until he emerged from the covers. She could make out enough of his face in the dark to see that he was smiling before he hid it, nuzzling against her neck and hair.

“Can we just stay in bed all day?” she murmured contentedly, stroking his head with her fingers. She faced toward him and drew a tentative hand down his side, let each finger explore the texture of his skin, and the bone and muscle beneath the surface. In the dark, he looked somehow… smoother. Less veiny.

“More than anything, I wish I could,” he said. She smelled herself on his breath, but also the scent of blood, stronger. “ I can’t walk in daylight. My world has always been a dark place.”

She touched his face, musing over this new information with pursed lips, still pleasantly languid and tingly.

“I have so many questions,” she said, blinking owlishly in the semi-darkness, trying to see through the shadows playing tricks on her. He looked more… human, in this low light.

“Dawn isn’t for a little while,” he said, brushing his nose against her cheekbone. “I’ll try to answer you as best I can.”

She peered over her shoulder at the clock. 06:16 AM. They had perhaps an hour, this time of year.  Now that she had the opportunity, and his agreement, Anna didn’t know what to say. As early as it was, she was having difficulties organizing her thoughts. Curiosities jumbled on the tip of her tongue.

Nomak slid closer to her until she felt his naked front against hers.

“How old are you?” she asked, though even as she did, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer. He slid his hand around her hip.

“I can answer you with years, if you want. But I’m not sure it will tell you what you want to know,” he said, eyes blinking in the light from the curtains reflecting off the wall. “I’m old enough to know that joy is fleeting, and precious. And too old and cynical to be feeling the way you make me feel. But I guess I’m still young enough to want more. ”

He’d stated this as a fact, not as a sentimental indulgence, much like everything else he’d said. Anna bit her lip, and then she kissed him softly, which he returned with a gentle yearning, his hand tightening on the soft skin on her hip. He couldn’t be outside in the daytime, and he was probably much older than he looked. It was bizarre to find herself processing, and accepting, this information more easily now.

“Do you uhh... live forever?” It felt like a stupid question to ask, but considering the way her world had changed, maybe it wasn’t so stupid after all.

“I don’t know. I hope not.”

“Why not? Wouldn’t it be nice to have all the time in the world to do whatever you wanted… go wherever you wanted… read every book.”

He closed his eyes and touched his forehead to hers. It was a small gesture, but nonetheless, Anna felt it throughout her body, down to her toes. It felt like indulgent affection.

“When time stretches without end, it makes every moment meaningless,” he said with great care. “Impermanent things, and people, stop mattering. Life is cheap when there’s no limit to it. I never want to live long enough to become that.”

“It sounds like you’re talking about something... or someone, in particular,” she said.

He nodded and took a shaky breath, as though he needed to gather the courage to say what he was about to tell her. Anna steeled herself.

“I wasn’t always like this. I was born the thing I’ve come to hate. A vampire, pureblood, it’s called, when it happens by birth. Things were different, then... it was all I knew. I thought I was untouchable, and that my position was secure. I was naive. To even my own family, my life was worth no more than what it could gain them. Their greed turned me into… this.”

Anna’s eyes fell to his chin, though in the dark, she could barely see the details of his mark. She’s seen last night how it had started to separate… almost like a second mouth. For procreation, he’d said. She wasn’t sure she was ready to understand how, exactly.

“Your own family did this to you?” More questions came to her, questions about his life before. But she didn’t want to pry, and again, wasn’t sure she wanted to know the details. Some things were better left unknown.

“I was a lab rat,” he said with a humorless smile. “They wanted to create a creature that could walk in the daylight. They wanted all the benefits of the condition, with none of the disadvantages. To do so, they needed one of their own to test the method.  I didn’t have a choice in the matter. When they failed, when they created a monster instead of the god they wanted, they tried to destroy the evidence. Me.”

“That’s horrible,” she said, unable to fully grasp, or express exactly how she felt about it. To say she was alarmed didn’t cut it.

“I managed to escape. Don’t worry, they will come to regret it,” he said in a low growl that sent cold chills down her spine, and caused a nearly involuntary reaction to pull back from him. She reached up and tugged on the chain over them to  better see his face, no longer wishing to leave this conversation to the dark.

When she saw him, she gasped, startled.

“Your face,” she said. He looked nearly human. Soft, dark eyes and pinkish skin. He smiled wryly.

“I need vampire blood every few hours or I start to change, to look the way I did last night. It’s one of the downsides to my condition… makes blending in difficult, even among vampires. I didn’t want to scare you, so I brought some with me, in a bottle in my coat. Just in case... I hope you don’t mind.”

“So… last night, when, you know, we were making out. You needed blood,” she tried, and failed, to say this casually. Jared smirked and looked down. Coppery eyelids matched the shadows beneath his eyes.

“No… I think I was just aroused.”

“Oh.” Anna flushed hot, and he looked up at her, smiling shyly. His hand moved to her cheek, cool against her skin. In the back of her mind she remembered the clock. She wished the sun would stay down a little bit longer.

“I didn’t know that would happen. There is still so much I don’t know, things they wouldn’t have thought to tell me. I never, in all my dreams, thought I would be so lucky. I have never met anyone like you, Anna. I hope that doesn’t make you uncomfortable to hear.”

Anna chewed on her labret stud. A memory surfaced again from the night, but it felt like a dream. She couldn’t even be sure it had happened. She glanced at him, nervous to ask, suddenly.

“No, Nomak, I’m flattered, really, but I have to ask… have you ever come to my apartment without me? Like… waited outside of it, maybe at night?” she prepared herself for the answer. She knew it couldn’t have been him last night, though, wasn’t even sure anyone had even been there.

She could tell by his immediate, genuine look of confusion that it hadn’t been him, and that concerned her more than if it had been.

“No, never. Not without you. I didn’t know you before you found me, and I left you alone that night. Why…?” Now he was concerned. She waved him off, feeling stupid. It was good to ask him, but whether she was logically justified in doing so, she believed him. It was possible that a bird, or something similar, had blocked the light. It could have even been falling snow. But Anna was starting to remember, to think back over the last few months or so, that there had been more than a few instances where she’d woken in the early morning hours to use the restroom when she used to sleep solidly through the night.

“Nevermind. I just thought I saw something. But I was half asleep at the time, so I probably just imagined it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

Nomak didn’t seem so satisfied with that explanation, but he didn’t say anything further and she didn’t mention anything else about it.

“I need to leave you soon,” he said, pulling her hips against him. She felt the press of his soft parts on hers, and though he wasn’t aroused, she could still feel the effects of his wake-up call and wouldn’t have minded another go. She also would have been content to lay there with him and talk.

“I know,” Anna answered, looking behind him through the window. It was still dark, but she could see that the black indigo was starting to lighten into a deep dusky blue in the pre-dawn sky. She wanted to know more. She wanted to know everything about him. Not just his history, or the nature and circumstances of his condition, but his favorite color. His favorite books, and places he’d been. What he did with his nights, and his dreams for the future, if he had them.

She wanted, she realized, to get closer to him. She couldn’t be sure how much of it was tied into the novelty and excitement of knowing someone, a nonhuman, like him, or how much of it was the lingering euphoria of his utterly mind-blowing skills as a lover. But Anna was developing a bit of a crush on Jared. It seemed as though it was mutual, but she wasn’t going to get her hopes up, even in his case.

He kissed her, and when she felt his tongue slip against her mouth, she welcomed it. Against her better sense, she couldn’t hold onto her thoughts and feelings any longer.

“Nomak, I want to see you again,” she said quickly, ripping it off like a band-aid.

“I... don’t want to make promises to you that I can’t keep,” he said in a low, husky voice. “You met me at a very… strange time in my life.” As gently as he spoke, she still felt her heart fall. She knew the speech, had given it a few times herself. But this whole situation had hit her so hard, and so fast. And despite the surreality of where it was coming from, being rejected so politely was familiar enough.

“Yeah, I understand,” she said, applying a relaxed and accepting smile even as she tried to harden herself against the disappointment. His lips touched hers, briefly, and he held his eyes on her until she met them. His gaze was warm and shadowy.

“I don’t know if you do. They are trying to find me, Anna. One, in particular. He is very powerful, and very old, and he wants me dead. He knows that as long as I’m free none of his kind are safe.” He said that last part with a degree of malicious pleasure that might have unnerved her if it weren’t for her general feelings about vampires. She felt a bit of vicarious satisfaction in that regard, instead.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, repressing a shiver, in a state of dreamlike disbelief that she was even having this conversation.

“I will find them first,” he said with a sharp smile, drawing his thumb along her jaw. “When I told you I was something worse, I meant it. I’m very dangerous, Anna... at least to them.”

Everything she’d been thinking, and wanting, seemed so petty and stupid, and she felt petty and stupid for imagining that they would do something as conventional as start dating. She wanted a smoke.

“That’s a new one, at least,” she said, breaking their connected gazes and rolling onto her back with a cynical smirk. “No one’s turned me down with the excuse of enacting righteous, bloody vengeance on their enemies. It’s a good one, though, I’ll have to remember it.”

Nomak uttered a raspy laugh, startling her smirk into a more genuine one. He propped himself up on an elbow so he could look down at her with a crooked smile. Looking like this, she could almost pretend that he was a normal guy, and this had been a normal one-night stand. No big deal.

“I’m not turning you down, not really. I just don’t want you to get involved. Or hurt,” he said, sweeping a black strand of hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear.

“Me neither,” she said, looking up at him with a shrug. “But I still want to see you again. It isn’t every day I meet a vampire-slaying sex god who likes to read. My past partners have all fallen short in one or more of those regards.”

Nomak snorted and rubbed his hand over his smooth scalp to the back of his neck in a very unmistakably bashful gesture.

“Sex god, really.”

“Yeah, dude,” she said with a grin and a bite of her bottom lip. “You’re... _ridiculously_ good in bed. And you didn’t try to sneak the condom off or put it up my butt without asking.”

“... What?”

Anna laughed and rubbed her sleep-crusted eyes. Black eyeliner left over from the previous day left a dark smudge behind on her hand. “Let’s just say I’ve been with my fair share of slimeballs. Good ones too, but not like… _you_ good.”

He lowered himself closer to her.

“You’re really good, too. In every way.” He darted his tongue out over his teeth suggestively and Anna’s breath caught in her throat. “You taste… like sweet honey. You smell like sunlight, and those things you like to smoke. And the sounds you make…”

“Careful with the pillow talk, Nomak. You were rejecting me, remember?” she teased, though it wasn’t without a spark of the truth. Just hearing him talk about it was making her heart race. He made a self-frustrated noise and sighed.

“I want to see you again, and not just for… that. I just… even if I weren’t in such a dangerous position... I wouldn’t know how, or where to begin. This isn’t something I would have ever expected for myself.”

Beneath his concern for her wellbeing was normal, shy-guy hesitation. It made him so relatable, and in a way, it made it harder for her to let go. She liked the shy ones, they tended to make the best company, and often turned out to be the most interesting lovers. Nomak was no exception, by any means.

“Well,” she said, dragging a finger down his chin mark and pretending not to notice how hard he swallowed when she did. “First, you ask me out, or I ask you. Then, we do something together, something fun and maybe get to know each other a little better. Then, if the first date goes well, we exchange a nervous, hopeful goodbye with the plan to do it again. Wash, rinse, repeat.”

“And never see one another between dawn and dusk,” he said, quieter. She shrugged.

“Not really a big deal to me,” she said lightly, trying to ignore how her heart was beating a little faster now. He had stopped saying no. “Nighttime is usually when all the fun happens, anyway. We don’t have to do anything, even. We could go for a walk. I would like that, actually, it’s been too long since I’ve been out, and I’ve barely seen any of the city. I figure… you probably are pretty familiar with it. Am I right?”

Before he could answer, a plaintive mew came from the doorway. Mariuska had heard them talking and decided that the chance to get fed early outweighed the cost of leaving whatever warm place she'd occupied last night instead of her usual spot by Anna's pillow.

She might have ignored the cat in favor of waiting to hear Nomaks answer to her awkward attempt at asking him out, except for the fact that Nomak’s eyes were on the cat now, her question forgotten. He looked completely paralyzed. Not in fear, but intense apprehension.

It was the only thing that could distract her from the gnawing uncertainty over whether she was making an ass of herself with him or if she'd just lost her mind entirely long before that.

Anna sat up and called the cat, who started licking her tufty paws the minute she realized she had her human’s attention.

“It's too early for breakfast, tubs,” Anna told her affectionately. Unable to keep up the apathetic act when she heard the word breakfast, Mariuska made sure to complain the whole way to the bed, right up until she half-jumped, half-dragged herself over the side to the top. There, she froze. Her blue eyes bugged wide in her squashed face, staring at Nomak as if she'd only just noticed he was there.

It was a startling, and baffling sort of standoff between her houseguest and her cat, and Anna was about to say something. A rattly, keening growl rose in the silence. At first Anna didn't realize it was coming from Mari, as the cat had never made that kind of noise before. But soon, the cat was peeling back her puffy lips and flashing fang with a spitting hiss.

“Mari, it's okay you dumb fuzzball. He's a friend,” Anna scolded, reaching for the cat’s snowy white mass.

“Anna, wait-” Nomak started.

Mariuska’s ears flattened and with a sharp yowl, she swatted at Anna's reaching hand. One claw snagged the skin and tore back, ripping an uneven line of welling red into the side of Anna’s wrist. Anna jerked her hand back with a startled yelp as the cat scrambled over the surface of the bed and scurried underneath.

“Damn cat,” Anna groaned, embarrassed, as she inspected her stinging wound. Blood was beading in a few places already.

The bed shifted beside her as Nomak leaned forward.

He slid himself out from under the comforter and reached his long legs around to the edge of the bed and climbed off. He padded, bare-assed and in his socks, to the bathroom, lightly scratching one side of his narrow hips as he went, and she watched, curious. Part of her wanted to ask about the spiny growths over his shoulder blades, but then considered it might be rude.

He flicked on the light and disappeared around the corner where she listened to him open a drawer, and the cabinet beneath the sink.

Anna licked the cut without really thinking twice about it, and a second later, Nomak emerged from the bathroom with a more suitable treatment in the form of a box of band aids, a big bag of cotton balls, and a plastic bottle of rubbing alcohol. He deposited it on the bed before sliding in next to her with one knee bent atop the comforter.

“I tried to warn you,” he said with an apologetic quirk to his mouth as he unscrewed the rubbing alcohol.

She shrugged, still a little embarrassed.

“I guess I overestimated her ability to read the room. Next time I'll remember the treats.”

“I don't take it personally.” He handed her a cotton  ball, damp with rubbing alcohol. “Animals  can usually tell something isn’t right.”

She was going to say something, to argue that all Mariuska needed was time, when the light cast on her wall by the streetlamps blinked off. She looked at the clock the same time Nomak looked outside. 7 AM, on the dot. The sun had not yet emerged but the sky closest to the visible eastern horizon had lightened to a golden pink.

Anna dabbed at the cut, and when it was clean, Nomak handed her a bandage. She wasn’t going to convince him that Mariuska just needed some gentle coaxing, probably in the form of food, especially after her question was still hanging, unanswered, in the air between them. She’d have to make it up to Mari later. But now, the day was starting.

“You have to go, don’t you?” she asked, only giving him a quick look. He’d been watching the sky through the curtains before he met her gaze and then dropped it to the bandage she was sticking on her skin.

“Yes…” he took her hand and smoothed his thumb over the adhesive strip, searching her face with his eyes. “Thank you, Anna, for everything. I haven’t spoken to anyone about this. I’ve been…” he trailed off, lost for a moment.

“Alone,” she supplied, watching his finger.

“Yes.”

“I can only imagine,” she said.

“I think you can.”

She’d no sooner registered what he meant when he picked up her hand and bought it to his mouth, and pressed his lips against it in an archaic gesture. With anyone else, it would have been hammy. With Jared, it twisted her heart like a vise. Then he got up and started to pull his clothes down from the hooks on the bathroom door.

She gathered the first aid supplies together, trying not to be obvious about watching him dress himself. She wanted to say something light and inconsequential, to show how laid back she was about this. She wanted to pull him back into bed, cover the windows so he could stay. She wanted to ask him if she was ever going to see him again. Instead, she started getting dressed, too. She wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep, anyway.

Black jeans, bra, tee shirt, socks. She pulled her hair into a topknot, ran her hands over the shaved side. It was getting bristly.

“Can I leave through your window?” Jared asked, pulling his black hood up and sliding into the brown overcoat. “I’d rather not run into anyone.”

“Good luck. It’s stuck,” Anna said with a smirk. It made her think of high school, making the guy she was seeing leave through the second floor window so her parents wouldn’t catch her with a boy in her room.

Jared walked over to it and inspected it, running his hands around the perimeter.

“I think I can fix it,” he said with a quick smile over his shoulder. “If that’s okay.”

She shrugged with a ‘be-my-guest’ hand wave, and then she stood there watching him, dubious, as she brushed her teeth. Gently he pushed the heel of his hands around the outer edges of the window panes. She heard the creaking of wood, and immediately thought about how easily he’d tossed her on her bed. That set off a chain reaction of thoughts about their sex, and the entire evening leading up to it, and she had to physically shake herself out of it before she went catatonic.

With a satisfied sigh from Jared and the smooth slide of wood against metal, the bottom half of the window slid up, letting the sounds of the early birds and barking dogs wash in with the chill air.

“Well hot damn,” she said around a mouthful of foam. Nomak tested it, closing it and opening it until it went a little more smoothly while she spit in the sink.

He was facing her with his back to the open window and his hands jammed in his pockets when she came back in. He looked sad, even smiling. The sun would be peeking over the city skyline and into her 5th floor apartment any time now, but he seemed reluctant to leave.

“I’m going to see you again, right?” she finally spit out, unable to stop herself. She instantly regretting how desperate it sounded.

“It might be better if you didn’t,” he said, watching her without blinking. “I really don’t want anything to happen to you because of me.”

She shrugged, unsurprised to hear him say that, and forced a smile.

“It’s complicated, I get it. But I want to see you again. If you can’t... well, then that’s just the way it is. We had a good time together, we can leave it at that. But, if you change your mind, Jared… you have my number.”

A dreamy half-smile had settled on his face.

“ _Anuška_ ,” he sighed. Anushka. It was something Miss Sofie called her sometimes, an affectionate diminutive version of her own name. The hated the way his term of endearment  tightened the pinched feeling in her chest.

“You need to get out of here, Nomak,” she said, waving him toward the window. “Go on. The sun’s coming up.”

He went to it and slid halfway through, resting on the bottom frame. She followed after him, chewing on the inside of her bottom lip until it hurt. She wasn’t sure if it was for her benefit or his when brushed her hand with his one final time before ducking and climbing through. She closed the window behind him, taking a moment to appreciate how easily it moved.

She caught Jared looking around the fire escape landing outside her window for a moment, like he was searching for something. And with a final glance at her, he grabbed the railing, vaulted over the side, and dropped like a rock.

Heart pounding, Anna wrenched the window back open and clambered clumsily out to the fire escape in her socks, and gripped the slippery frozen railing as she peered over the side. Of course, there was no broken body five stories below in the snow, and Nomak was nowhere to be seen. Proof, if she needed it, beyond the back spikes and the tongue thing, that Nomak was not just in deep with the body mod community, that he was the real deal. And that there was another world beneath the veneer of the normal one, where things like him, and vampires, existed.

She made sure to latch the window shut behind her.

Anna was able to coax Mariuska out from under the bed by shaking a box of treats. The persian seemed to know, by the sheepish slink in her walk, that she had made a mistake. After a couple of crunchy fish-shaped snacks, Anna accepted the cat’s apology-by-way-of aggressively-affectionate nuzzling, and Mari likewise forgave Anna for letting a stranger into their house and forcing an introduction.

She held the cat as she fell back on the bed, running her fingers through the fiercely-purring lump of fur as she thought about Jared’s evasiveness. The contentment from his company, and the way he’d played her body like a piano, was still fresh enough that she could think back on the encounter with pleasure. It was a good thing. If she could go up against an armed thug with nothing but pepper spray, and then tumble with a sexy demon man in the sheets (mostly) without breaking a sweat, normal social interactions should be a piece of cake.

If nothing else, the whole otherworldly reverie of the evening (and night… and morning) had really highlighted just how bad she’d gotten in her solitude. She’d hoped that moving to a new city, and a new country, would give her the personal reboot she’d been needing after the years prior, but that one frightening and world-shaking occurrence outside the nightclub months ago had sent her back into hibernation. If nothing else, at least the new setting had kept her busy enough to stave off depression, but Anna remembered how she used to be before her world became centered around her mom’s slow deterioration, and then after, living through the grief.

She used to go out, meet people, have _fun_.

More, she used to date. She used to love the excitement of getting to know someone atop the basis of a mutual attraction. It didn’t always work out, enough that she’d gotten good at taking rejection, and doing the rejecting, with grace, but she almost always had fun along the way. She didn’t fall easily for anyone anymore, not after Vic had wormed his way into her heart and taken a chunk with him on his way out, but that was why this thing with Jared was so disorienting.

Mariuska seemed to have completely forgotten the whole thing, and the feel of the heavy, boneless puddle of white fur was comforting when Anna’s stomach was at turns tight and fluttery. Already she could feel the pangs of disappointment and self-questioning cutting in on her afterglow.

Jared was not human. A fact that, she had to hand it to herself, she was still taking pretty well. She’d seen, and felt, the evidence firsthand enough to accept it. But, the cynical and protective part of her considered that just because he wasn’t human, it didn’t mean that he hadn’t somehow manipulated and used her to get her into bed with no intention of ever seeing her again from the beginning.

That came from a dark, distrustful aspect of herself that she didn’t like; it felt needy and desperate, more suited to a bitter shut-in. But, the alternative was the possibility that she had somehow caught feelings for a guy she’d literally just met, and who didn’t seem interested in continuing to know her, whatever his reasons.

She had to say, though, as far as rejections were concerned, he’d given her one for the books. A dangerous family blood feud, a science experiment gone wrong, power-hungry vampires manufacturing their own destruction in their hubris. It sounded like a ridiculous comic book plot, something with enough holes in it to sink a yacht, and she had literally nothing to go on except for her own observations and Nomak’s word.

And yet, she wasn’t sure it mattered. Who cared if it was just a wildly creative lie? She hadn’t slept with Jared because he’d dazzled her with his tragic story. She’d slept with him because the chemistry had been undeniable, because he had known, either through experience or natural empathy, exactly how to push every one of her buttons, and because, ultimately, she’d wanted to.

She couldn't blame him for the fact that it didn't end the way she wanted, with him taking a five-story dive off her fire escape to avoid being seen by the other tenants of her apartment building.

And she was tired of how unproductive it was to moon over hm. She pushed Mari off her stomach, and noted with dismay that she’d left a thick imprint of white hair behind. To some, having a wardrobe that consisted of mostly black while owning a long-haired white cat might have seemed counterintuitive. But it was worth it. Really, it was the cat’s fault that Anna decided to stay in Prague instead of running home with her tail between her legs, so to speak.

Mariuska had saved Anna, and vice versa. White fuzz everywhere was just part of the package.

She was a bit disappointed in Mariuska’s behavior, though.

“I hope you don’t act like this every time I bring someone home,” she said, reaching over and stroking Mari’s white furry belly. The cat gave her a half-lidded look as if to say ‘what did you expect?’

It was 7:30 AM, and Anna was starting to sense another round of self-doubt related to Jared’s behavior coming on, so she made herself get up. First, she grabbed Mari, who knew she was about the be subjected to something unpleasant and gave a half-hearted struggle. Maybe she remembered how she’d accidentally clawed Anna, though, and didn’t put up a fight when Anna sat down on the closed toilet with a pair of small pet nail trimmers. She cooed softly to the grumpy cat as she snipped the sharp, hooked ends off of her claws one at a time. She let Mariuska go afterward, who decided to sulk in front of her empty food bowl after being forced to suffer such an indignity.

Anna needed to use a few strips from her lint roller to undo the damage to her black attire, and briefly admired the bite mark he’d left in her neck last night in the reflection of the bathroom mirror. He’d bitten her hard enough to leave a bruise without breaking the skin. She liked the lingering proof that he’d been there at all, and touched its tenderness with a hand and a sigh, but nothing further.

After that she started her day.

Anna put some music on her laptop, closing the Dušek YouTube video first with a brief pang of embarrassment, and let herself zone out to something soothing as she made herself a breakfast of oatmeal and bad coffee.

At 8:15, Anna fed Mariuska, who scarfed it down like she had barely survived a famine. She took a hot shower and folded her clothes, which had been sitting neglected in her hamper sack behind her bedroom door for two days. Everything went into her narrow dresser which was, apart from her bed and side table, the only furniture she could fit in her room.

At 9:00 she decided to finally tackle the matter of her shamefully bare living room walls. Having a guest had made her realize how weird it was that she hadn't wasted any effort on decorating. It was so opposed to her tendency to personalize and customize everything that belonged to her that she couldn't help but see it as both the symptom of and a contributing factor to the rut she'd been in the last 7 months or so.

One by one, the box of art prints by various dark and surreal artists went up, each in the frames she’d bought soon after arriving and which had sat unused behind her dresser the entire time. Soon the box was empty, and her walls were an homage to Giger, Artemesia Gentileschi, and Beksiński, among others.

Anna felt pretty good when she was done. Her apartment felt more like a home, with each print taking its rightful place on display. Mari had watched the entire affair silently from the couch, moving only when Anna had climbed on it to hang one of them.

She felt good enough that she was actually thinking about going out after work. It was Friday, she was getting paid, and she didn’t have any plans. It had been too long since she’d had a reason to look nice. And just as quickly, like a woman possessed, it was decided.

\---------------------------------

**12:55 PM Friday**

She’d bothered to wear jewelry for the first time in months, apart from her ear tunnels and labret piercing. She had opened her box of rings, hidden away in a dresser drawer, under her socks. She used to wear more jewelry, taking joy in ornamenting herself in silver rings and chokers with charms on them. She was ready to look nice again.

The weather had taken a warm turn, and by the time Anna left the apartment building, full of good tea and Sofie’s vatrushka pastries and cabbage soup, the snow was all but melted. Sofie somehow knew about Anna’s male guest. At some point between the time Mr. Kasparek had seen them the night before, and Anna’s visit to her elderly neighbor, the two building residents had spoken together. Sofie was very interested in hearing all about him, so Anna indulged her with a very censored retelling of the evening that ended with him leaving in the night.

In the process, it got Anna thinking about him again, which she continued to do, despite her efforts to the contrary, for the entire duration of the train ride and walk to the clinic.  

She had been so lost in thought that she somehow missed the fact that the front door of the clinic was wide open. A refrigerated transport truck was parked half on the sidewalk in front, and men in black uniforms with dollies were wheeling out pieces of medical equipment from the back.

She tried asking them what was going on, but either they weren’t Czech, or they didn’t consider her important enough to respond to. So, she called Dmitri, angry and confused.

She didn’t even let him talk after he picked up the phone.

“Dmitri, what is going on? There are guys at the clinic taking all our stuff,” she blurted into the phone, dodging out of the way of a man bearing a stack of two styrofoam coolers containing all that was left of their blood supply.

“Anna, I meant to call you” the older man on the other end of the line answered in English with a stiff Czech accent. He sounded nervous. “I’ve been dealing with this lawyer asshole all morning, otherwise I would’ve got in touch with you sooner.”

“Lawyer asshole?”

“Some Englishman named Kounen. He works for a rich guy downtown. An anonymous buyer. They bought the clinic, Anna, and acquired our patient records.”

“What?” Anna couldn’t understand the words he was saying. The uniformed movers were packing up the items in the lobby, unplugging the computer and she watched them as if their actions were incomprehensible. “Dmitri, does that mean I don’t have a job anymore?”

“Don’t worry about it, Anna. They said you can work for them at the blood bank. Parizska, it’s called.”

“Have you told Lanya yet?”

“She’s not interested. I tried to tell her that they will pay more, but she didn’t care. Do you have something to write with?”

He’d asked the question before she had a chance to grill him more. Automatically, Anna patted down her pockets and then looked to the desk. She managed to stop a mover from sweeping everything off the desk and into a box in time to grab a notepad and a pen. She braced against a wall as Dmitri recited the address. When he was done, she had to read it over before it registered where it was.

“Dmitri, hold on, this place is in the next district!” she said, her voice rising. “I’ll have to switch trains and take a tram from the metro station just to get there.”

“Sorry Anna. I couldn’t say no. You know how things have been. There were two patients this week, and there hasn’t been a blood donation in two weeks. We can’t keep funding with those kinds of numbers. I think maybe it is best to let the big guys take over. They can help more people that way.”

He wasn’t wrong about the numbers.

“What about you?” she asked with a sigh of resignation, leaning against the window of the clinic, watching the men carry boxes and medical supplies to the truck. Dmitri had been a decent boss, enough that she was going to miss him, even if she didn’t see him that often. He’d given her a chance when she hadn’t had many other options.

“They gave me enough money that I will be comfortable,” he admitted with clear reluctance. She started to protest, but Dmitri cut her off. “I’m done trying to fix this neighborhood. There’s no point. I’m too old for this. Just do yourself a favor and at least see what they are offering, okay? You might be surprised.”

Anna almost missed when he said goodbye. She thought she’d said the same thing back, but she wasn’t sure. All she could think about was how this sudden change was going to affect her. She didn’t know how she was going to manage the commute, or if it would just be easier for her to get another job. It all depended on what the blood bank was offering. Considering how things usually went, she had to be a least a little bit appreciative that they had even thought of the people working there.

Remembering the gun under the counter, anna slipped behind it and felt around for where it was taped to the underside of the desk. She couldn’t let them take it, and she couldn’t leave it. She didn’t want to keep it on her person, but she didn’t know what else to do with it, at least until she could find a way to give it back to Dmitri. She made sure the safety was on and slipped the small firearm into her satchel.

“Excuse me,” she said, tapping one of the uniformed guys on the shoulder. Young-looking and wearing shades. “Are you going to Parizska blood bank with this stuff?”

“Parizska, yes,” he answered in halting English. “Want ride?”

She spared a momentary thought for Jared before accepting with a ‘thank you.’ Perhaps part of her had maintained the hope that by that night, he would have reconsidered. If he wanted to show up with more coffee, she wouldn’t be there, and without him calling her, there was no way to contact him. She would be forced to move on.

She told herself it was a good thing as she squeezed into the cab with two of the movers. They looked too well-dressed and professional to be any of the regular moving companies. Perhaps they worked for the blood bank.

She would find out. If nothing else, it would force her to do something new.

\--------------------------------

**1:40 PM Friday**

The lower-class areas of Eastern Smíchov in the 5th district gave way to the older and more central 1st district on the other side of the Vltava river. Anna listened to the men discuss their day’s work as she watched the buildings pass by with her hood up and her head against the window. From what she could gather from their conversation, hers wasn't the only clinic the anonymous buyer had purchased.

Was it some kind of initiative of the city’s governing council? Something about the suddenness of it spoke otherwise. Like most governments, the Czech Republic tended to get bogged down with red tape and almost nothing ever happened overnight. And what was the point of consolidating like this? Dmitri might have believed that this would ultimately help people, but it was clear that the money was talking louder than his conscience, not that she could totally blame him.

She just feared that all it would do was complicate access to affordable care from those who needed it the most. People who didn't necessarily have a way to get around town, or couldn’t afford to miss a day of work to do it. Winter was approaching fast, the busiest season for charity and outreach groups. The early freeze was just a taste of what would come in later months.

The movers dropped her off in front and took a side street to the receiving bay. Anna took in her surroundings. She hadn’t been on this side of town before, but she knew where she was.

The blood bank wasn’t in the best area. Wenceslas Square, one of the tourist spots associated with Prague’s Old Town, was only a few miles to the west. But near Parizska, walled in by old stonework buildings and side streets blocked off by long-abandoned construction work, it didn’t look like a place she’d want to be after dark by herself. Anna was having second thoughts being there even in broad daylight.

The air was chill and moist and a steely grey sky warned of the rain that was forecast for later. Anna left her balaclava down, even though she would have liked to protect her nose from the damp cold. After all, if they were offering better pay than Dmitri, she wanted to make a good impression. Maybe she could negotiate a shift where she’d leave before the evening.

She started walking to the front door when her phone rang. Expecting Dmitri, she was baffled when she saw the unknown number flashing on the screen. She stood off to the side to answer.

“Hello?” There was a moment of silence on the other line.

“Anna,” a voice said, little more than a hoarse whisper. Her back erupted in tingles and a giddy shot of adrenaline went straight to her heart.

“Jared,” she said. And then, with suspicion, “how are you calling me?”

She heard him breathing, as if he was holding the phone close. Reflexively, she turned her back to the street in front of the blood bank and curled around the phone. She closed her eyes.

“I’m somewhere dark. I slept so well last night, it made me restless. I keep thinking about you.”

“I’m uh… sorry,” she said, not knowing what else to say. I keep thinking about you too, she thought to herself.

“No, it’s… good. It’s nice to have something pleasant on my mind for once.”

It sounded like he was smiling. Anna caught herself smiling, too.

“Jared… is everything you told me true?” she asked. Just hearing his voice on the other end of the line did a lot to alleviate her worries, but she wanted him to confirm that the worst suspicion was unfounded.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. She believed him.

“It’s just all so… surreal.” Without thinking about it, she reached up to touch the tooth-mark bruise on her neck. The tenderness gave her a tiny thrill of pleasure. Proof that it wasn’t a dream.

“I know,” he said with a low chuckle that made her heart skip a beat. “For me, too.”

There was a moment of silence and Anna needed to hear him talk again, to say anything.

“I have a lot more questions, you know,” she said in a light, teasing tone.

“Yeah, I know. I want to tell you everything, Anna. This isn’t the best way, though. I didn’t want to leave you… like I did. You must have thought…”

“It’s fine, really,” she cut in. “Just tell me you want to see me again and all is forgiven.”

She’d said it like a joke, but the fragile hope and fear behind it was real.

“Yeah,” he said back, a little breathless and muffled. “I know I shouldn’t, but I want to be with you.”

Anna mouthed a silent ‘ _yes’_.

“Cool, so pick me up, what, right around nightfall?” she grinned, and when she heard Nomak laugh, she felt it flutter in her belly.

“You said something about a walk…” he said with an audible smile she could almost picture on his face, reserved and sweet.

Anna was so lost in the visuals of walking around the city with Nomak that she almost forgot where she was.

“Nomak, my clinic got closed this morning. I won’t be there.”

“Oh. That was… sudden,” he said. There was a layer to his tone that caught her attention as strange, but then he was talking again. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m outside this other place. The people who own it bought us out, some rich anonymous buyer. Dmitri said I could have a job here, but I don’t know… it’s a little far.” Anna cast a glance toward the neon cross symbol next to the front door.

“Where is it?” he asked.

“Parizska… uhm,” she looked around herself for a street sign. “On Sokolovská street. I might give it a try, just for today. There’s always work somewhere, though.”

“I hope it works out.”

“Yeah… it’s not a big deal. Good news is, it’s Friday and I just got paid. Work can wait until Monday. I want to have fun tonight.” She meant it, too. But now that Jared was talking to her again, it had a little more conviction behind it.

“So. Where should I ‘pick you up’?”

She couldn’t stop smiling, and now she was twisting a fallen strand of hair around her gloved finger like a ditz.

“Maybe I can just call you?”

He was silent for a moment, to the point where she thought she might have asked the wrong question.

“This isn’t my number,” he answered somewhat ominously. And then, as if he recognized the way it had sounded, he said, “I’m just borrowing it for this call. I had to hear your voice.”

She sighed, drunk on the euphoria of having her little crush proven as requited.

“Okay, well even if I end up not wanting to work here, I think I’ll stay in the area. There was a little coffee shop not far from Parizska, _Kavárna Kočičí_. I think it’s open late. You can get something to eat beforehand, and then pretend to drink coffee with me. It’ll be great.”

Nomak laughed, raspy and near to the receiver, to her little joke about getting something to eat.

“I’d like that. Yeah, okay.” He sounded quiet, shy. It twisted at her heart.

“I’m glad you called me, Nomak,” she admitted, chewing on her lip and scuffing the toe of her boot against the outside wall of the blood bank. “I didn’t want last night to be the last time I saw you.”

She heard him swallow.

“Neither did I.” And then a deep sigh. “I have to go, Anna. But I’ll see you tonight, okay? 8 PM.”

“8 PM,” she repeated, grinning stupidly. “See you then, Jared. Sleep well.”

“I will, now.”

After he hung up, Anna stared at her phone for a moment, unaware of anything except the steady thud of her pulse and the loose energy in her limbs. She tried to imagine where he slept. Was it comfortable? Maybe she could get him to stay at her place during the day tomorrow. She could block out the windows, seal the light out with layers of cardboard and foil, tape the edges down so nothing got in.

It was ridiculous, this fantasy. But, she dared let herself enjoy it, just for a moment. A relationship with someone like Jared. Someone kind and honest, shy and intuitive. Someone that knew how to pull her hair just the right way, and who woke her up with an orgasm.

8 Pm couldn’t come fast enough.

The interior of the blood bank was much larger than she expected, long and wide and stretching in either direction. And it was busy. Uniformed security guards were posted here and there, standing against support pillars or next to doors leading to the back of the main space. Benches spanned the spaces between the pillars, back to back, and about half of them were occupied by people waiting.

The echoes of conversation and activity bounced and echoed the brick and concrete walls and ceiling, melding together into one incomprehensible murmuring din. She was a little lost, actually. She watched as occasionally, a well-dressed blood bank employee approached people sitting on benches to discuss results, or collect them to take back. It was all so formal and efficient, Anna thought she might have walked into the wrong place. The employees were dressed more like accountants than clinic workers, and the sheer number of people waiting was hard for her to grasp when her clinic had been so dead.

“Applicant or donor?” a clipped voice behind her asked in British English. Anna turned to face a severe but pretty woman in a skirt suit, shirt collar buttoned tight and hung with a narrow black tie. She barely looked up from her clipboard when she addressed her.

“I’m not sure, an applicant I guess? My clinic was closed this morning, I was told that I might have a job here.”

Aloof eyes flickered to her face briefly before returning to the clipboard. Occasionally the electronic bug zappers attached near the top of the support pillars would buzz or pop as some winged insect, more active with the turn of the weather, got too near.

“Of course. Come with me, please, and we’ll take care of your blood test,” she said, half-turning toward one of the doors to the back.

“Wait,” Anna said, halting her with a gesture. “Why do I need to take a blood test?”

“It’s standard procedure for applicants. I had to have mine done, too, it’s perfectly customary, I assure you.”

“I am not really comfortable with this. I don’t even know if I want to work here.” Anna caught sight of surveillance cameras spread throughout, red lights shining in the shadowy upper corners of the space, and found the amount of security strange. The woman was looking at Anna a little more closely now.

“The pay is good. Full-time, with benefits. We want experienced people working here. If you have a history of working in clinics, we could use you.”

Anna was taken aback by the woman’s persistence. She spoke with the confidence of someone who was used to convincing people with those lines, perhaps a little too easily.

“Look, that’s very nice of you, but I’d rather sit down for an interview and find out more information about the positions available before I commit to any blood tests or anything. I don’t have a car and it’s not the easiest place to get to, if you understand.”

The woman pursed her lips and then flashed a tight smile.

“Of course. Come with me.”

She didn’t wait for Anna to agree, she just started walking away. Anna pulled down her hood and tousled her hair nervously before following behind. She cast a final glance to the doors leading to the lobby and outside, and then the woman led her out of the main room and into a hallway in the back.

“May I have your name?” the woman asked as she walked. The doors closed behind them.

“Anna Townsend,” she answered, turning to look at the doors briefly over her shoulder. The woman wrote something down on the clipboard.

“You’re American?”

“Yes, but I’m on an extended work Visa.”

“Does your family live here?” She took them around a left turn.

“No, in America. Minnesota.”

Not many people were back here, but she could hear conversation behind closed and cracked doors. Cameras watched from every angle and Anna eyed them warily.

The woman stopped in front of a metal door with a window and pushed it open, but she stayed poised with her hand on the handle.

A lone table in the center, with a chair on either side, was all that occupied the concrete box. A buzzing fluorescent light overhead droned and flickered. It looked like the interrogation room of a police station. Anna hesitated.

A young man in the same uniform as hers moving at a quick pace approached the woman and whispered in her ear. Anna couldn’t hear what was said, but in her paranoia, she thought it might have something to do with her. But they spared her no attention. The woman nodded, and the man left as quickly as he came. Then she smiled warmly at Anna.

“Please, take a seat Miss Townsend. Someone will be with you shortly,” the woman said, gesturing toward the table.

Anna stepped in the room with some hesitation. As soon as she was clear, the woman in the skirt suit shut the door, closing her in.

A single camera was positioned in the corner with full view of one of the chairs. Anna couldn’t explain her uneasiness, but it had been gaining strength with every passing minute.

She sat in the chair facing away from the camera and waited.

She tapped her foot and tongued the sore skin inside of her cheek. Footsteps came toward the door and she perked up, prepared herself to meet her interviewer, but whomever it was just passed by and kept going. She started chewing on a nail. If they hired her, she wondered if she would have to wear a suit like everyone else. She hoped not. At the very least, though, it looked like a well-funded and tight operation.

Fifteen minutes passed, marked accurately by how often she kept checking her phone, as if Jared might call again, even though she knew he wouldn’t.

She was starting to lean toward just walking out. She had never been in such a strange job interview before, and she’d never been approached for a blood test before anything else. It made sense to require it when working with blood, with the risk of spreading bloodborne illnesses and all, but everything about the place made her uncomfortable. The longer she had to wait, the more anxious she became. She swatted a fly away from her face.

She glanced toward the door. A face was peering in through the little window, startling her. It disappeared, and then the handle turned. She sat up straighter.

Instead of one of the clinic workers, a pair of uniformed security guards such as the ones that had been spaced throughout the main waiting area, came through the door. Their faces shaded by their military-style caps, were impassive. One of them had a neatly trimmed beard. Anna tensed up, scooting back in her chair when they surrounded her on either side.

“What is going on?” she demanded of them, her heart pounding. They weren’t looking at her.

“Anna, it’s nice to see you again,” a voice, deep and cool, and with a bare hint of an aristocratic British accent, came from the door. Her heart seized in terrible recognition. “How long has it been? Seven months?”

He’d told her that his name was Tobias when he met her outside the club, before she tried to leave. Before he’d followed her unseen and trapped her in an alley.

He was standing there in the doorway in a slim black suit that shone faintly metallic in the light. Loose brown hair fell past his ears in thick waves, framed a soft, youthful face. His skin was too pale, and hard blue eyes regarded her with the dispassion of a reptile. She started shaking her head, but she couldn’t speak.

“Seven months, ten days, fourteen hours, actually. I’d hoped to wait a little longer before resorting to this, but you’ve forced my hand, love.”

“It’s the daytime,” she said in a low gasp, choking on her words.

The vampire looked up toward the ceiling with an exaggerated expression of puzzlement before he looked at her again, bore into her from his bone white face. Light reflected in his pupils, a hint of red.

“I don’t see the sun, do you?” She caught a glimpse of his sharp teeth. Unsubtle.

Anna started to stand up. Both uniformed men beside her pushed her back down into the chair, heavy hands tight on her shoulders. Tobias stepped into the room and shut the door gently behind him. Fear flashed sharp in her chest.

She could only watch with cold dread as the slender man came before her and looked down at her with heavy hooded eyes, hands loosely in the pockets of his exquisitely-tailored trousers.

“You and I have some catching up to do,” he said. Something about his demeanor, and the subtle quirk at the corner of his mouth told her she was in a very bad place right now, but that she was also right where he wanted her. “I especially want to hear about your new boyfriend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh ohhhh  
> tell me what you think  
> thanks to FancyLadySnackCakes for all her input and encouragement


	5. 2:40 PM Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dabbling with Jared's POV later in this chapter.  
> This chapter brought to you by Under Your Skin by Aesthetic Perfection and Demons by Empathy Test

2:40 PM Friday.

The uniformed men prodded her out of the room and around a corner, and she scarcely managed a startled grunt. Maybe it was her midwest politeness, but she only thought to shout and resist after a door closed them into a large stairwell. She tried to slip away from the men pushing her, but strong male hands clamped her upper arms, as unbreakable as steel. A boot cuffed the back of her shoes, knocking her off balance.

She demanded to know where they were taking her as they forced her to descend the steps. When that didn’t do anything, she threatened to call the police, in both English and in Czech.

She passed rooms that reeked of rotten blood and was scared to look in them. Others were closed behind heavy steel doors. Down some unknown hallway branch ahead, she could hear someone ranting loudly. It felt like she’d been transported to an insane asylum. Not one person in uniform spared her more than a passing glance.

Ahead, Tobias sauntered briskly in his slim-fit suit, unaffected by her struggle. Eventually, she stopped trying. Her mind raced over her options, but they were few. Desperately, she craned to look at the security cameras spaced out on nearly every corner. The hope that someone would see what was happening and stop it faded fast.

Tobias tapped a key card from his pocket on the security panel beside a large wooden door, so out of place surrounded by the concrete and brick of the basement level.. He pushed it open and entered the dim room on the other side.

“In here please, gentlemen.”

Anna was pushed forward and her boots hit hard wood. She stumbled, but caught herself. The guards waited in the doorway to be dismissed.

“That’ll be all, thank you,” Tobias said to them with cool decorum. Anna watched Tobias as he closed the door behind them.

A heavy lock mechanism slide into place, and then they were alone. Her ragged breaths were too loud. Somewhere behind her, a wood fire crackled and cast a warm glow on the dark wood paneling lining the walls, the only light source in the room.

Tobias met her eyes and smiled. It was winsome on his attractive, youthful face, framed in jaw-length, wavy brown hair. He looked like he was in his early twenties, save for his eyes, which shone strangely cold in the shifting light.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked easily. “A drink to soothe your nerves?”

Anna didn’t answer.

Seven months, ten days, fourteen hours.

Wild, half-formed thoughts ricocheted off the inside of her skull, but she couldn’t hold onto any of them for long. Paranoias she’d rationalized into oblivion reared their ugly heads, fears that she was being followed, that she was never quite alone. She couldn’t focus, not while she was so presently in danger.

If he wanted to know how to find Jared, why was he putting her through this?

“No need to be shy, Anna,” Tobias said, shaking his head. He came toward her.

She cringed away from him when he reached, but it was her winter coat that he wanted. He held it tight and tugged it down her arms, forcing her to shrug out of it to free herself. Her purse hit the floor, but she didn’t dare bend over to pick it up.

He hung her coat neatly on a standing coat rack beside the door and smoothed the wrinkles out of it with his hands.

She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling unprotected without the extra layer.

Tobias removed his own suit jacket and hung it next to her coat. The black sheer dress shirt he was wearing underneath looked expensive and tailored to him.

Once his suit jacket was hung, his deft white hands darted into her coat pockets and retrieved her keys, and her cellphone. He carried the items in hand past her.

She didn’t let him out of her sight as he deposited her things in a wooden bowl sitting atop a dark mahogany coffee table. Plush brown leather executive-style arm chairs were arranged on opposite sides. On the wall behind it was a hearth with a log fire burning inside. Tobias was someone with influence, and he wanted it to be clear.

She watched him go to a liquor cabinet positioned against the wall left of the fireplace, by all appearances unconcerned with her. With his back turned, half hidden in the shadow, she heard him pull out a heavy bottle and two glasses.

Her eyes darted to the phone sitting in the bowl.

“I’m curious. Who would you call, if I were to let you?” he asked, startling her and making her eyes jump back to him in an instant.

She heard the soft scrape of coarse glass as he removed a stopper, and then glass clinking against wood as he set the stopper atop the cabinet.

“The police? The American Embassy?” He said the last part with a hint of irony. There came a gentle trickle as he poured the liquid into one of the glasses and then another, all without sparing her the briefest glance. “Or… your father, to deliver a final message of love? To tell him how much he means to you, perhaps to remind him to take care of himself after you’re gone?”

It was the casual mention of her father and not the implied threat to her that sent a shock of cold to her heart.

She imagined that call. If her dad found out it was the last time he’d ever hear her voice, it would destroy him. His fear for her, and desperation, and sadness would kill her before anything else had a chance to. Tobias hadn’t mentioned her mother, either. Anna’s chest felt tight at the notion that Tobias somehow knew her family circumstances, and that her dad was a widower.

She didn't speak her thoughts. Instead, she asked the question that was overshadowing all the others.

“What do you want?”

Tobias approached the coffee table holding a glass brandy snifter in either hand. She didn’t look up at his face. He was slender, but she knew too much to doubt his strength. She could see his bare chest through the button-front shirt, draped with ornate gold chains and a dangling cross. He’d fit in perfectly with the gothic nightclub scene, down to his pale skin, and it perhaps explained why she’d first met him outside of one.

“Please, come here so that we can have a drink and talk,” he said in a soft voice, nodding his head to the chair on the right.

Anna was paralyzed. Being in the same room with him was too close, let alone having to sit directly across from him. She was afraid to anger him, and afraid to move, and so she stood mutely, worrying at her labret piercing. He leaned over and set a glass on the far side of the table.

“Don’t be mistaken, I could make you. But I would prefer that you do this of your own volition.”

He’d said it smooth as silk and it was far more terrifying than if he had shouted it. Her cold fingers tightened into fists until her rings cut into her skin.

She cast one more look toward the door before making her legs move. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop watching him. He’d moved so fast before when he’d practically ripped the coat off of her. Outwardly, he was disinterested as he sat and stared into the crackling fire, snifter cupped in his hand.

Anna edged around the arm of the other chair, and into the plush seat. Only then did she remember her purse, and the handgun inside of it, laying back in front of the door. She wasn’t sure she’d even be able to use it if she had it in hand, or if it would do anything to him. She sat down.

He lifted the glass to his mouth to drink, and when it caught the firelight just right, she could see that the liquid in it was amber-red in color.

“Is it blood?” she asked before she could rethink the question.

Tobias gave a derisive laugh, etching harsh lines of shadow around his eyes and mouth that made him look older.

“Brandy,” he said, holding the glass up against the light. “Vintage, and worth more than a luxury car. I don’t get much out of it, but I’m told it’s very good. Please, enjoy it. Maybe then we can have a conversation, as normal people do.”

It had not felt like an invitation.

Anna stared at the drink on the table, a little mystified that he thought there could be anything even remotely normal about this. She didn’t trust any drink he gave her, but without an exit plan, she didn’t exactly have a choice. She kept telling her arm to move, but it didn’t budge from where it gripped her other arm close.

“Or… would you prefer something else?” he asked with a pointed look. “Coffee, perhaps?”

His question immediately made her think of Jared, and his humble offering the night she brought him home. This was met with a flash of brief, thoughtless anger toward the soft-spoken man for accidentally involving her in whatever this was.

Much like his mention of only her father, Tobias’s offer of coffee didn’t feel like an accident. Maybe Jared had helped her, in a way, because she was more inclined to trust her instincts, now. She had little doubt Tobias knew more than he was letting on.

Dread edged in, but she fought to keep it at bay.

“Have you been watching me?” she asked, far sharper than she’d meant. Her heart fluttered like a caged bird and a queasy tightness started to settle into her stomach muscles.

“Drink,” he said, flashing a grin.

As if to demonstrate how, he peeled his lips back and tossed the brandy directly onto his tongue. His sharp teeth were on display to full effect, and for just a brief moment he looked like a medieval cathedral gargoyle carved in alabaster when he swallowed.

A phantom smell like damp mildew and garbage hit the back of her nose. It was so sharp that she had to clench her watering eyes against it. In the darkness behind her lids, she was no longer under Parizska blood bank.

She had her back against a slimy brick wall, trapped. Red eyes caught light from the street indirectly and he was so close. Too close.

Her heart pounded hard, the urge to flee bit at her heels. Her stiff muscles cramped, though and she couldn’t move.

The sound of crackling flames cut through the rushing in her ears.

It took her a few seconds to feel the leather chair beneath her, and the warmth on the right side of her face from the fire. Tobias was still in his seat across from her, he hadn’t moved. Anna shook away the intrusive imagery, and fought against the echo of fear, buried under months of rationalization.

She reached forward and picked up her glass. She tasted it, let some of it roll around on her tongue, barely enough to get a taste of the sweet, burning alcohol. The fumes rose from her mouth into her nose, made it itch. The clamminess on her cheeks warmed slightly.

Her pulse started to settle back into something like a normal pace, and he made a soft sound of approval.

“I pick the terms,” he stated, looking down at the empty snifter in his hand. “You will get nothing unless I give it to you. I don’t want to hurt you, Anna, but I expect you to be cooperative.”

Anna hadn't noticed the exact moment her empty hand had crept onto the arm of the chair. Her fingers gripped the padded leather hard enough that she could feel her nails bending under the pressure.

“Tell me about your guest,” he said, flicking deep blue eyes up to her face, almost demure except for the calculating gleam in them.

“My…” Anna faltered.

She didn’t register that he’d moved until after the glass exploded against the wall behind her chair.

Too delayed, she jumped and flinched against the armrest.

Tobias was on his feet, looming across the table. His eyes were now savage and his boyish mouth was downturned. Harshly lined in shadows, once more he’d adopted an aged appearance.

“Your _guest_ ,” he sneered. “Don’t be coy, it’s far too late for that. Now drink.”

Anna’s hand shook as she took a messy swallow, dribbling some of the alcohol down her chin. Tobias’s sneer softened into a smile, and the lines melted back into smooth cheeks and falsely youthful features.

“Don’t protect him, Anna. He doesn’t deserve it.”

Jared had warned her that the vampires feared him and wanted him dead. Whatever he’d tried to save her from, she was in the middle of it now. Dangerous people were after him, and now she was connected with him. But this situation with Tobias… it didn’t make sense.

“I’m not trying to protect him,” she said finally, clearing her throat. She took a shaky breath and fought through her guilt over Jared. “I don’t know what your problem is with him, but I don’t want to be involved.”

“I don't think you understand, Anna. You are more than just ‘involved’,” he stated with a curl to his lip. He lowered into the chair and slouched against the back. “If I’d known that all it took to earn your sweet graces was a cup of cheap coffee, it might have saved me a lot of bother.”

Her mouth opened and closed noiselessly a couple of times as what he said sank in. Tobias had somehow seen her last night, enough to know of the coffee and what had come later.

She felt sick.

“I can’t blame you entirely. Short-sightedness and naïveté are part of the mortal condition. This other vampire you took into your bed, this _vermin_ ,” he said with a sneer of disgust. “He is more accountable for his actions and he will pay for them.”

“Vampire?” she heard herself repeat dumbly.

“Did he bite you?” he demanded, but didn't give her a chance to answer. “After Denying myself the pleasure, the thought of an impure-blooded dog piercing your sweet skin… it's more than I can stomach.”

It hit her, then. Tobias had no idea who Jared was. This had nothing to do with Jared and everything to do with Anna, and Tobias’s interest in her.

Tobias leaned forward and a few locks fell into his face. He grabbed the phone out of the bowl and slid it across the top of the table toward her, oblivious or uncaring to the way that she shrank back from him.

“Call him. Tell him where you are, and that he must come save you at once.” It wasn’t a request.

“I don't have his number.”

“Then to whom were you speaking outside of my blood bank, with such a pretty smile on your face? A different lover perhaps?”

Despite everything, Anna's face burned. She thought of the numerous cameras in the lobby, and the basement corridors. Tobias had eyes everywhere, it seemed. Anna wasn’t feeling brave anymore. Fighting through the waves of panic coming at her from all directions she did as she was told. She picked up the phone and flipped it open.

Under recent calls, she saw the number he had called her from. She hesitated for only a second before hitting the call button, now compulsively biting her cheek. Her teeth squeezed the soft skin, pulling it out with a pop, repeating, until it started to feel raw.

“Put it on speaker.” Tobias’s voice was low and calm.

The phone rang loud in the room, tinny and crackling over her flip phone’s inadequate speaker. Anna was in a state of numb suspension as she listened to the rattling tone. She dreaded to hear Jared’s voice, tried to think of what she should say to him.

Someone picked up on the other side. Her heart stopped.

‘ _Who is it?’_ a coarse female voice demanded in Czech. Anna’s heart raced forward and she shot Tobias a glance. _‘Hello? I don’t want to buy anything.’_

The woman said a few more things, with increasing agitation, before the line went dead. Anna snapped the little flip phone shut. Jared had said it was a borrowed number, whatever that meant. What it meant was that she was, effectively, alone. Her mingled relief and apprehension warred with one another until a sort of numbness settled over everything.

“That’s the number he used to call me,” she said evenly. Tobias took this in with an unreadable expression, except for the tic in his upper lip.

“No matter,” he said sharply. “I will find him. He will pay for what he's done. Tell me, was it insult to me that motivated your betrayal? Or does he have some other quality I lack? Me, a fucking _pure-blooded.”_ His words dripped with venom and belied his fragile self control beneath the surface.

She wanted to tell him that she had no idea who the hell he was, that her only knowledge of him was from that terrifying experience so many months ago. She wanted to tell him that Nomak wasn't just a vampire, but something far worse that fed on Tobias and his kind. But she didn't. She had no idea how he would take this information, if he'd fly into another rage, if she would just make things worse for herself.

Tobias was insane, and that meant she was in a very bad place right now.

He used terms of endearment, but Anna thought of the glass smashed against the wall. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine her body lying broken in much the same way. The image overrode any outrage over the very possessive nature of the question.

“I didn't mean to upset you,” she answered. Her face felt cold, and her mouth dry. She knitted her fingers together tightly.

“I know, my dear… you must understand, I’ve dreamed of this for so long,” he sighed, calmer for now. “I’ve been on this earth for nearly two centuries, Anna, did you know?” She stayed silent, but it seemed he didn’t expect an answer anyway as he gazed into the fire. “A quarter-century shy of two hundred years... not as much as many, but more than most humans can comprehend. Entire years pass in the blink of an eye. But those seven months spent watching you from afar, unseen... it might as well have been a lifetime. I would have waited longer, but then I had misunderstood your rejection as a sign of your chastity... but it’s plain that I was wrong.” His voice took a darker turn and her glass started to tremble in her hand. “I forgive you, Anna… as I said, you are only human.”

“You never left me alone after that night,” she stated, flat. She forced herself to say it calmly, even though in her thoughts she screamed it.

“I remained devoted, loyal to you. I protected you from the legions of filthy dogs that would have consumed and discarded you like livestock. You are meant for something greater. You’re meant to be at my side.”

Anna felt like her lungs were starved of air, despite her rapid breaths.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, white-knuckle gripping her thigh. “For keeping me safe.”

His face softened and he regarded her with benevolence.

“You can thank me properly later, Anna. But first things first. Drink your brandy. Please.”

Anna didn’t like his insistence. One good swallow would finish it off, but what if it had been poisoned, or drugged? What if it was too late? There was no room for defiance, though. She took a conservative sip, and even that she had trouble choking down.

“You aren't going to kill me?” she asked, tentative and unsure, and so very tired.

“Oh, dearest... quite the opposite,” he said with some enthusiasm before sitting forward, eyes alight with vigor. “I’m going to give you _eternity_.  All the things that concern you will no longer matter… you’ll never again know age, or sickness, or fear. It’s only a matter of simple exchange. Blood for blood. It can be quite... sensual,” he said, fixing her with hungry eyes. “I want this for you. You’ve no idea how much... it can’t be helped that you will only be a Turned, impure-blooded. But our children…”

He chuckled to himself. “I am getting ahead of myself.”

She could only process one thing at a time in his horrific mess of a statement.

“I don’t want this,” Anna said, unable to mask her despair any longer. Tobias cut his eyes to her. A tight smile concealed his teeth, but he didn’t need to show them for the threat to be there.

“You don’t have a choice. Unlike _some_ , I won’t debase myself to fuck a human, even one as exquisite as yourself... it is morally detestable. Your _gentleman caller_ seems to lack the same scruples.” His language was crude enough to leave her speechless. “Finish your drink, Anna, and I will get you more.”

Anna’s mouth was dry as she struggled to process what he was saying. Horror twisted in her chest. He was going to force her to be a vampire and why? So he could sleep with her without breaching his personal code of ethics? So she could be his wife? It seemed that her own thoughts on the matter were inconsequential.

She didn’t want to drink anymore. It must have showed on her face, because Tobias’s upper lip pulled back baring his gums and sharp, protruding incisors and she was faced once more with the inhuman creature hiding beneath the comely surface.

“Do it, or I will call your father myself and inform him that he’s outlived both his wife and his daughter. I doubt he'd take the news well.”

With trembling hands, Anna downed the rest of the brandy. Tobias stood and plucked her glass from her, far too quickly. His fingertips brushed hers, and then he was moving toward the cabinet on the wall. Though his back was turned, she could see that he was holding the fingers that had touched hers to his nose.

The liquor churned queasily in her stomach. It was too much, all of it. She kept chewing on her cheek until the taste of thin, salty blood touched her tongue. But no matter what, she didn’t wake up from the nightmare she was in.

“Please don’t do this,” she asked, wiping at the tear cutting a path down her cheek.

“I sense that you have some concerns, Anna,” he said from the cabinet. She could hear the soft splash as he refilled her glass. “But you need not worry. The process doesn’t have to be unpleasant, and afterward you will wonder why you ever hesitated.”

She thought of Nomak and their 8PM meeting. She had no idea what time it was now, but she knew that it would be hours before he was anywhere near Parizska blood bank. He was the only one who might be able to help her.

Tobias returned with one snifter in hand. Instead of leaving it on the table for her as he did before, he offered it to her himself. He was standing between her and the fireplace, and the way the light came from behind him, his brown hair glowed around the edges like a halo. His face was cast partly into shadow. The whites of his eyes appeared darker, bloodshot.

His lips were parted and his teeth framed the dark sliver of his mouth.

“How do you like the brandy, Anna?” he asked in a near whisper, his eyes glinting coldly. His quiet tone made the hairs on her neck stand on end. It felt too intimate, too isolated.

She shrugged and nodded, more afraid at this point of angering him or triggering a mood swing than being honest.

She tried to take the glass from him carefully so as not to touch his hand, but he made it an impossibility. Another unsolicited brush of skin contact, fingertips, made her skin crawl. In this minor gesture, there was an unmistakable show of power. Only then did he let her take it from him.

“You can have as much as you want.” Her eyes flickered to his face, unsettled by a subtle, quivering undertone in his words.

“Thank you.”

She took a sip, knowing that appeasing him now was her only option, and Tobias smiled.

“I told you that the process need not be unpleasant,” he purred. “You may not feel it yet, but it has already begun.”

Anna felt her face fall slack. Dumbly, she looked at the liquid in her glass.

“You humans don’t tend to enjoy the taste of blood. But there are any number of ways to make it more palatable,” he said with a mischievous smirk. “ Alcohol, for example. Frankly, I am surprised you didn’t taste my blood immediately.”

Anna stared dumbly at the brandy in her glass and tongued the self-inflicted sore spots in her mouth. Thanks to the emotional upheaval of the last few days, the nervous habit had been worse than usual, and she’d grown used to the taste, before he even gave her the drink.

Her throat tightened and nausea crept upward. She wanted to ask what would happen to her now, but all she managed was a retching noise as her stomach heaved. She swallowed it down again, closed her eyes, started shaking her head. He’d fed her his blood. His vampire blood.

“You look like you’re going to be ill, my love,” he said without remorse. “That’s fine, there is no rush. I hope you don’t mind if I take my turn. After all, I have waited so very long...”

She couldn’t follow him with her eyes and then Tobias’s hand was on her wrist.

He yanked her forward by her arm, jolting her entire body and causing the brandy in her other hand to slosh over the side of the glass. He tore back the adhesive bandage on her wrist while Anna struggled with increasing desperation to pull her arm from his grip, even bracing against him with her feet.

With one hand, he clasped her upper arm, with the other he immobilized her forearm.

She jerked against his restraint hard enough to make the chair jump under her. Unperturbed, Tobias dragged his tongue up the jagged seam of the cat scratch, scraped against the delicate scabs of crusted blood.

He swallowed with a pornographic groan, eyes rolling back, spine arching, before clamping his entire mouth on her skin.

His teeth tore into her wrist and her blood gushed into his mouth with such force that it stole the warmth from her fingertips. Her whole hand followed soon after.

She screamed, but it only incensed him further, intensified the glutting of his mouth on her open vein.

The brandy glass fell from her other hand and hit the floor.

She fought against him, but she may as well have been hitting the wall. Until her fist, adorned with silver rings, struck him on the face.

Tobias hissed as furrows of black appeared in the unblemished skin of his left cheek, sizzling and bubbling, spreading like a delayed burn. Her jewelry, she realized, pulse racing. She tried to hit him again.

But Tobias, face twisted in rage and marred by the blistering black burns, grabbed her other arm just beneath the elbow and pinned it against the arm of the chair, careful not to touch the silver. With his upper body lodged against her, fitted between her legs, he continued to drink undeterred.

The marks on his face were already beginning to heal

She couldn’t feel her hand now, and a dull pain was creeping up her arm toward her heart. Her chest cramped up and Anna threw her head back, unable to do anything but suffer through the attack.

Just as quickly, she was free from his grasp and the pressure of his body. The lack of restraint sent her sliding, limp and shivering, to the floor.

Wedged between the chair and coffee table, Anna sobbed and gripped her injured arm. Every nerve ending was alight as the feeling, and her circulation, returned. Molten heat poured into it, leaving a wash of agonizing pinpoints of pain.

“Anna, please forgive me, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Tobias gasped, sitting back on one hand. Her blood was smeared on and around his mouth, glistening on his lower lip, and his cheeks were flushed. His eyes looked feverish. “I never imagined it could taste so sweet...  oh my darling...”

The pain narrowed to localized throbbing points at her wrist and strained shoulder. She was past the point of words, so she listened to him, trying to stifle her noises.

“Don’t fight it, Anna… it will be so much easier for you if you don’t.”

She felt a hand on her arm. It tightened before it pulled away.

“Rest and recover, my love… there is no hurry. We can take all the time we need.”

\----------

### 7:28PM Friday

Nomak fed shortly after the sun went down.

The vampire dealing the addictive chemical cocktail to humans behind a halfway house in Liben was a safe choice, a good choice. Her blood was so dilute, though, he had to eat her heart before he felt satiated.

It was a messy way to do it, but it also served to appease his baser urges. She had done nothing against him, personally, but her very existence was an affront, and the world was better wiped of one more leech.

He could feel his body breaking down the traces of the substance known as krokodil, just as the vampire’s would have, given more time. Soon, there would be nothing left of it.

On a human, the substance was devastating. It was called the flesh-eating drug for a reason. A vampire’s ability to heal far outpaced the damage caused by long-term repeated use, which made the product demonstrations more convincing to her mortal buyers. It was an effective, if disgusting, strategy, judging by the wad of paper bills she’d had on her.

He thought of Anna as he watched the dealer’s body burn, and then disintegrate into ash, behind a dumpster in a dark alley. He wouldn’t tell her about it unless she asked, but there was no reason to lie to her about what he was anymore.

The hot water in the unfinished remodel job wasn’t connected yet, but as he showered himself off, the vampire’s blood kept him warm. He just hoped that it would improve his color better than the last one. Something told him that he’d long since reached the point of diminishing returns as far as what feeding could do to improve his appearance. Soon, he wouldn’t even be able to pass as human at all.

He disposed of the soiled clothing he’d worn for the hunt, brushed his teeth so he wouldn’t smell like the back alley trash he’d killed, and went for a walk.

Nomak took the route along the east bank of the river. He tried to remember to act human. It was cold, but not as cold as it had been during the snap. Prague 1 was the district where Anna would meet him, not far from Old Town. It was convenient for how near it was to some of the most beautiful architecture Prague had to offer.

He decided that the first place he would take her was the square. She could see the astronomical clock, something she’d probably missed in her months of isolation. To think that she had been driven to withdraw for fear of the night, when she should have been enjoying her life’s prime… it caused the steady rage that had been with him since his escape, quieter for two days now, to flare briefly.

He shouldn’t have called her. He shouldn’t have given into his tender fascinations, and arranged to meet again with her. But what was done was done, and he wouldn’t pretend he regretted it.

Nomak didn’t know how the next phase was going to play out. What he did know was that he was going to keep Anna as far away from it as possible. His anticipation for her company was dulled somewhat by the fact that this would need to end before she got hurt, or worse.

But that sad business was something for another day.

Tonight was for her.

It was clear and dark along the undeveloped stretches beside the Vltava. Sounds from nearby streets and passing boats carried over concrete and water, but the shore was hidden behind overgrown scrub and small trees.

Even though he was isolated for most of the way, he moved slowly. Or, at least, maintained a regular human walking speed. He didn’t want to get to the meeting place too early, she might think him overeager, or desperate. He smiled to himself and kicked an empty glass bottle past the water’s edge, where it bobbed in the reedy shallows. Anna wouldn’t care. She thought his incompetence with flirtation was endearing.

He hoped he was clean enough for her. He hoped that he smelled alright. With that thought, Nomak pulled the neck of his hoodie out and sniffed. It smelled like Prague, for better or worse. He wished he’d thought to use some kind of scent when he’d showered. There was no time, now.

It wasn't that Anna made him nervous. The truth was far more devastating than that.

She humbled him in a way he didn’t know was possible. Not with force and degradation, as at the hands of Damaskinos’s scientists, but with gentleness and grace. He craved more of that feeling more than anything else. Perhaps, even, than justice against those who’d wronged him. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a choice in that matter. It was inescapable. It didn’t stop him, though, from imagining the next date with Anna, and the next after that.

Ahead, where the main thoroughfare met the river’s edge, Nomak diverted from the river to rejoin civilization once more. The sounds, sights, and smells of human activity came from all directions. If anyone looked too closely, he kept his head down and coughed into his hand, but no one seemed to take any particular notice of him. Right now, he looked unremarkable, perhaps just a little ill.

Hot, Anna had called him. He didn’t understand, but he knew it was sincere. He was grateful for any affection she granted him. She had already given him so much. So much, without any expectation of return.

He wanted to give her everything.

He distributed most of the roll of cash he’d liberated from the drug dealer amongst various buskers and street performers, saving enough to purchase food, or drinks. There were many troubadours out that evening, taking advantage of the crowds of tourists, so there was music of all kinds wafting from nearly every corner.

He thought of what she’d said about Prague, about how alive it was. It made his own cynical thoughts seem so petty in comparison (how uncharming he'd been). And now, with music and conversation in the air, traffic going by and the bells of evening trams, Nomak was starting to see what she meant. He tried to see it all through her eyes, unburdened by the past that weighed on him.

She deserved to be a part of it, not locked away in fear. He was going to take her out for a night on the town. He would show her the world outside her door, remind her what it was like to be among others of her own kind. Maybe one good evening would help her find the courage to do so on her own, without him.

The closer he came to his destination, the more jittery he became.

It wasn't an unpleasant feeling, but he had little defense against it. Once or twice, he caught the scent of vampire amidst the mortals. It was unsurprising, after all they were drawn to crowds, but it still added to his quivering, excess energy.

If Anna were interested, Nomak could think of a few positive outlets for it that she might enjoy.

He would also be content to just sit with her. It was Friday night, and if she wanted to go out, Nomak wanted to be the one to take her. He would do anything she wanted. This cafe she mentioned, this _Kavárna Kočičí,_ ‘cat café’ in Czech, would be a good place to start.

Just before 8PM, Nomak stood outside _Kavárna Kočičí_ and laughed quietly to himself.

Sweet Anna had a wicked sense of humor, it seemed. The coffee shop’s name was literal as it catered to both human and feline patrons. People relaxed over steaming mugs, reading books or chatting with one another while various cats lounged on provided perches or played with toys.

He was sure that the moment he set foot in there, the small animals would run scattering. Or worse, would attack him. It would end up making quite a scene. Maybe she could be convinced to enjoy the coffee outside, once she arrived. If not, he’d be willing to endure any number of cat scratches, or embarrassments, for her. It was really quite strange to be so beholden to another of his own free will. It bore such a striking contrast to the dark world of blood bonds and obligations he was accustomed to.

Nomak tried not to lurk or look suspicious, but while he might have blended in other parts of the city, here among the brightly colored tourists and fashionable locals, he stood out. More than one person gave him a sideways glance, as though they thought he might try to pick their pockets or ask for change. He hid his face as well as he could as he kept his eye on the clock at the top of a bank building a block over.

Five minutes past 8, Nomak’s mind started to stray. She struck him as being fairly punctual, but  it was too premature to assume anything negative. If she’d decided to accept the job at that clinic, it was possible she was still there.

Or, maybe she’d had all day to think on it more clearly. It was fully possible that she’d changed her mind, and lacking a way to get in touch with him, wasn’t able to tell him. Or she just hoped he would figure it out when she didn’t show.

Nomak wouldn’t blame her if that were the case. Part of him recognized that as mature as she was, she was still human. And he was, without a doubt, the kind of monster that children were taught to fear. It wasn’t like him to assume the worst. Even so, he liked to be prepared.

He debated with himself. Should he show up at the clinic to meet her, or leave her alone?

He pulled the carefully folded receipt with her phone number from the pocket of his deerhide overcoat. He ran his thumb over the ink marks as though doing so would bring him closer to the hand that’d written it or reveal the truth behind his uncertainties. He’d memorized the digits, but he didn’t want to disturb her with a phone call if she were occupied.

Unwilling to give in to his insecurities, he decided to chance going to wait for her outside of the clinic. She had appreciated it when he waited with the coffee before, so he would find her again and offer his company on the short walk to the cafe. The moment she looked uncomfortable, however, he would take his leave and never trouble her again.

Ultimately, that might be easier for both of them, as much as it pained him to accept it.

He’d known, even as he allowed himself to feel affection for her, that his newfound freedom had an expiration date, one that was within sight. He didn’t know when Eli would finally break down and try to eliminate the threat Nomak posed, but it was only a matter of time. Drawing this out with Anna was… selfish of him. But every fiber of his being yearned for more of what she inspired in him. A purpose free of pain and hatred. Until now, such heavy matters were the only thing fuelling him. But Anna made him feel unburdened.

He never knew how fulfilling it could be to hold someone else’s happiness above his own.

When he turned down Sokolovská street, Nomak immediately got a bad feeling, and his thoughts about Anna were temporarily set aside.

It was only a couple blocks away from the popular tourist hubs, but the area was darker, less well-maintained and populated almost exclusively by locals, and homeless. He fit in better in his ratty clothes, for better or worse. As he passed an alleyway, he spared a sideways glance at a couple of junkies shooting up by a burning trashcan.

There was something else. Beneath the surface smells of garbage and neglected sewage drains, Nomak picked up the faintest thread of a scent that sent a hot, quivering jolt straight to his chest. Once he detected it, he couldn’t ignore it. It was everywhere.

Sokolovská street reeked of vampires. Immediately, a sharp fear pierced his thoughts. Anna.

Nomak searched the building fronts for the clinic’s sign, but the closer he got to the far end of the street and the tram bridge, the stronger the stench of leech became.

Dread hung heavily over him, dragged him down from the place of buoyant elation he’d felt at the start of the evening.

His hopes, that perhaps it was a coincidence that this was where the clinic was, dissolved the moment he found himself standing in front of Parizska. It wasn’t a clinic as he’d assumed, but a blood bank. One of the ones that were well-funded and staffed, courtesy of the vampire council.

How could he have been so stupid?

Anger and fear and that incorrigible hunger clashed inside of him. He felt the seam on his chin and neck throb, the corresponding tug deep inside his throat. The excess watering in his mouth and the ache in his jointed jaw was his body’s way of telling him to feed, to drain, to infect.

He’d deliberately denied it once he’d freed himself. He’d witnessed, under controlled circumstances, what came of his ability to procreate. The wretched creature, barely more than a mindless, ravenous beast, had been destroyed almost immediately by Damaskinos’s guards.

Now, the provocative impulse was almost overwhelming. Every one of his heightened senses, geared toward hunting and slaying vampires, galvanized at the prospect of such a bounteous feast. There had to be dozens of them in there, walking among the ignorant humans that filtered through the door seeking compensation for blood donations.

His instinct was compelling, but it was eclipsed by the dark, trembling wrath that rushed up from his gut at the thought that Anna had unknowingly given herself to the vampires.

He stood across the street, staring at the glowing neon cross over the door, nearly trembling with suppressed emotion.

Vampires didn’t employ humans. They only wanted their own involved in operations, or at the very least, familiars. And to Nomak, the human pets were as bad as the creatures to whom they willingly enslaved themselves. Anna would never do such a thing, he had no doubt. Unfortunately for her, that left very few ways this could turn out for her.

He didn’t have a plan when he crossed the street. He didn’t know if he was walking into certain death, if he would be recognized the moment he walked through the front door. It all depended on whether Eli Damaskinos had made his own disgrace public and asked for help.

All he knew was that Anna was in there, had been for nearly six hours by this point, and that every minute decreased her chances of walking out of there alive.

He would slaughter every last leech and familiar in the place before the night was through in order to find her, and may their gods help them if she was hurt, or dead.

He forced his face into placidity as he walked through the front door, mentally prepared for battle.

To his utter disbelief, he met no resistance, or recognition, once inside. The place was bustling, and no one paid attention to him. Vampires in trim clinic uniforms walked amongst unknowing humans that waited on benches or spoke to clinic workers at windowed counters.

Vampires and familiars in militaristic security uniforms stood guard throughout. They were armed with guns. A voice droned over the loudspeaker every few minutes with pre-recorded instructions in English, Czech, and Russian, or a direct page. More than once, a vampire clinic worker looked straight at him in passing, and then disregarded him immediately.

They didn’t recognize him.

Lacking another strategy, he decided he would pose as a human there to donate blood for money, and see how far this could go.

As absurd as it felt, he took a number from a dispenser and sat down on one of the benches.

They didn’t know him by name, either. When his number was called, he didn’t lie to the familiar sitting behind the counter.

Surely Damaskinos, eager to correct his mistake, had sought help when Nomak proved too dangerous to control. Surely he’d told someone about the violent science experiment running rampant and hunting vampires. To do anything else would be an invitation to disaster.

By all appearances, though, the Overlord had done nothing of the sort. He was too proud to admit his mistake, even when his own safety was at risk. Nomak would have to show him the price of such self-destructive narcissism.

He allowed them to test a small sample of his blood, to determine if his phenotype was one they needed. As the vampire blood technician drew a small sample, Nomak imagined what the man would look like with his lungs pulled out through his mouth. He clenched his aching jaw and smiled politely when it was done.

Afterward, Nomak was told to wait again for the test results, and so he did. Surely this would be how they caught him, when they noticed that something was off about his blood. But as time stretched, and nothing happened, Nomak could almost not believe it.

Here he was, so close to his oblivious enemy as he pretended to be their unknowing prey. Hatred, dark and potent, twisted in his heart. Even as vengeance was so close that he could almost taste it, Anna never left his mind.

Anna, being forced to come here. Anna, having her blood tested and being interviewed for a job, while her was fate decided by those who cared as little for her life as that of cattle for slaughter.

The vampires had grown overconfident in their place at the top of the food chain. They'd forced his hand.

He would bring war to them, and would remind them what fear felt like.

\--------------

### Friday, Time Unknown

The tongue on her neck lapped, probing at the coagulating scabs. It stung, but Anna didn’t so much as flinch anymore. Everything hurt, and the minor punctures where Tobias’s teeth had broken her skin were nothing compared to the rest. He took little blood this time. He was savoring her, taking his time.

With his body crowded against hers on the large leather chair, she didn't move a muscle. She didn’t want to incite him further, even when her stomach turned at the small, simpering noises he made as he suckled against her neck. She didn’t fight him, even when the amount of contact between them exceeded detachment and came close to molestation, with one of his hands cradling her neck, holding it still as he finished, and the other gripped around her waist, holding her tight to his front.

Her head throbbed, her chest felt tight, and her joints ached, all due to a combination of blood loss, stress, and physical exertion.

If this continued, she'd need to replace the blood she’d lost.

But no matter what he said to her, no matter how he threatened and cajoled, she didn’t give in and drink from his offered wrist. She’d already ingested some of his blood in the brandy, but she would not willingly do it again, knowing what would happen if she did.

As a result, her captor was growing increasingly more agitated, as evidenced by her cell phone, smashed to pieces on the floor by the hearth.

To his credit, he didn’t force her.

‘You can resist now,’ he’d said, smooth as velvet, after the second time. ‘But before the end, when you are reduced to the instinct to survive, you will _beg_ me for it.’

She used his reluctance to hurt her more than necessary against him; it was all she had. Ironically, it might be what ultimately killed her, if he let it go that far.

When Tobias finished worrying at the holes, he buried his nose in her hair. She stared toward the door, mentally distancing herself as he inhaled deeply. She tried to ignore how the hand around her waist tightened, pulling her ever so slightly against him, before it slipped away.

He must have taken her lack of active resistance this time for compliance. Stroking her neck with the hand that still held it, he gnawed at the skin of his own wrist with his teeth and held it in front of her. The bite wounds oozed black blood.

“My love,” he sighed, pressing full lips, moist with blood, against her temple gently. “Enough is enough. End your suffering, and mine.”

She turned her face away, jaw clenched shut.

Shaking with suppressed anger, Tobias’s hand tightened on her neck. With his thumb putting pressure on her esophagus, she considered that maybe this would be how she died, not exsanguinated, but strangled.

But he didn’t. He let go, and stood. He smoothed out his trousers, then he took her chin in his hand, gripping tight enough to hurt.

“I’ll return,” Tobias said, forcing her to look him in the eyes, something she’d been avoiding as much as possible. They weren’t blue anymore, they were stained as red as his mouth and tongue. “We’ll revisit this then.”

There was an implied warning in his words, that his patience with her refusal was coming to the end. He let go of her chin with a brusque toss and left without another word. An armed guard took his place standing just inside the door to watch her.

As she sat in her chair, leaned against one of the arms with barely the strength to lift her head, she considered that the end may be coming soon. Her heart labored in her breast, chugged in the sores where he’d bitten her on her neck, and her wrist.

She didn’t know what time it was. If she had to guess, she might have said early morning. She’d never known fatigue like this. She tried to make herself sit up, gaining the interest of the guard, but the strength was gone from her.

He was standing there, still as a statue, staring straight ahead with his gloved hands clasped in front of him. His face was as hard and impassive as a brick wall. Like the others, he had a gun strapped to his waist.

She pushed herself to sit up and alleviate the stiffness she’d adopted when Tobias was touching her.

Without moving his head, the guard’s eyes flicked to her face briefly before he resumed ignoring her. She glared at him, not that he noticed, or cared.

A minute later, his radio chirped and a garbled voice rattled off something in a language she didn't recognize but was vaguely Slavic. The guard unhooked it from his belt.

“Repeat,” he said, bafflement pinching his heavy brows under the uniform cap.

Anna knew something was wrong by the tone of the voice answering on the other end. She didn’t know what language it was, but the fear in it was universal.

The guard shot her a look. Then he answered the radio in the same strange language. Unsnapping the holster for his gun, he scanned his badge on the panel by the door. The lock mechanism unlocked and he threw the door open.

Emergency lights flashed in the hallway and gunfire popped somewhere down another corridor. The guard rushed out, and the door slammed shut behind him and locked, sealing her into relative silence.

Anna sat up alert, startled enough that it cut through her fatigue for a brief moment. Her dizzied mind raced, and her cold hands gripped the armrest of the chair as she stared at the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to FancyLadySnackCakes for her help, without which I may never have updated with this chapter!  
> I decided not to rehash the opening scene of the movie, and instead brought us right up to the moments before.  
> Please let me know what you think, and thanks for reading!


	6. Friday, Late

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for graphic violence, disturbing themes, and explicit sex! party on!
> 
> This chapter takes place immediately after Jared murders those blood bank workers
> 
> this chapter brought to you by the song Night by Zola Jesus. Check out the Charity Case playlist, which is in a constant state of flux! https://open.spotify.com/user/1230836959/playlist/4DiJsjubf8P6xD1yXrn1yi?si=0z0sKVqLSaCzIldr4on4IQ

### Friday, Late

Anna had a single fragile hope, but it was so weighed down by her exhaustion and strain that she didn’t want to linger on it. She had to think of herself, and right now she was alone and unattended.

There were no exits from the room except for the one she came through.

She pushed herself to her feet, but a wave of dizziness sent her back down into the chair. Gripping the armrest, she let herself catch her breath, forcing herself to focus on how she was feeling over anything else, gauging when it would be safe to try again.

She heard muffled gunfire, this time close enough that the door didn't block the noise entirely.

Anna tried again to stand, this time moving more slowly. She would guess, based on the way she was feeling, that she was down no more than two pints. Not fatal yet, but enough that she would have trouble getting away, or doing much of anything.

She was having difficulty enough just keeping her eyes focused. She felt for a pulse point in her neck, avoiding the puncture wounds. Her pulse was increased as her poor heart tried frantically to circulate her depleted blood cells.

Anna was dealing with hypovolemia in a blood bank, but she couldn’t get to the supply to save herself. Despite everything, she had to recognize the vicious irony of the situation.

Someone screamed outside in the corridor.

Anna’s eyes fell on her purse, laying forgotten on the floor where it had fallen earlier. As unconcerned as Tobias and his men were with it, it was plain that they didn’t consider her enough of a threat to search it. But she still had Dmitri’s gun.

She took a step forward and her legs buckled, sending her to the sheepskin rug on her hands and knees.

Panting fast and shallow, she focused on the texture of the rug, gripped it in her fist for something to hold onto while the room stopped tilting.

Something thumped against the door. Anna began crawling on the floor to her purse. She grabbed it by the strap just as the lock mechanism in the door disengaged.

The door fell open, and two figures spilled in from the loud, bright hallway. Ceaseless alarm bells rang out somewhere far away.

Tobias, harried and frantic, maneuvered to keep a guard, a different one from before, between him and the hallway.

Beyond them in the corridor, two figures clashed under the flashing yellow lights. Anna faltered as one of them, wearing a brown deerhide coat, bore the one in a guard uniform to the floor. She recognized that coat.

Tobias backed away from the door and the guard slammed it shut behind them. The lock mechanism slid into place and the guard braced against it, breathing hard. Blood was spattered up the side of his face, his or someone else’s.

Tobias looked wild, his brown hair mussed, his shirt in disarray as he searched the room. His eyes barely lingered on her before moving on.

“We need to get out of here,” Tobias snapped at the guard as he rushed over to the fireplace.

“He can’t get in, this door is reinforced steel,” the man said back a little too quickly. Tobias didn’t look convinced, and neither did the guard. Anna watched him uncover a hidden panel in the hearth, revealing a digital pin pad. He input four digits, and the wall panel beside him opened into another room, whose lights flickered on shortly after. It looked like an office with a desk and filing cabinets along the back wall.

Something slammed into the door to the hallway, the wood cracked and bowed inward, knocking the guard down and showering them both with dust and splinters. Anna fell back on her heels and the guard scrabbled to his feet, ripping his gun out of the holster.

The steel reinforced layer beneath the surface was now visible through the damaged wood.

“Get up,” Tobias hissed, clamping her upper arm tight and tugging her to her feet.

“Sir?” the guard asked, turning back to look at him. The fear was plain on his face.

“You stay here and _keep_ _him_ _out_ ,” Tobias snarled through his teeth, dragging Anna back toward the hidden space. She managed to maintain a hold on her bag, but it was a struggle to get to her feet before Tobias could pull her shoulder out of the socket.

Another impact hit the door to the corridor. Tobias yanked her inside the room after him just as the metal of the door began to separate from the frame.

Tobias locked the sliding panel closed behind them, and then he pushed her against the wall beside it.

“Who is he?!” Tobias demanded. He was manic, with his icy eyes gouged wide. Spittle collected on his lower lip with every seething breath through his teeth. “ _What_ is he?!”

It didn’t matter that Tobias still had her at his mercy. For the first time in the last hellish few hours, Anna felt something besides dread and self-pity.

“He’s going to kill you,” she said as calmly as she could manage.

In the next room, they both heard when the door to the hallway exploded inward, and Anna felt it reverberate through the wall at her back.

Now her words bore a certainty that showed in Tobias’s near animalistic saturation of fear.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and his other hand covered her face, forcing her tight against his front. She struggled against him as he pulled her across the floor, but she couldn’t muster the strength to do anything but drag her feet. With his back to the wall, holding Anna in front of him, he panted and waited. He was trying to be quiet.

_“Anna!”_

Her name was a bestial roar, infused with such raw wrath that it caused goosebumps to erupt across her entire body. Tobias reacted as though the voice had been a physical thing, balking like he’d been hit.

“Nomak-” she started, before Tobias clamped his hand over her mouth.

But that had been enough.

Something impacted the other side of the wall and burst through, sending the twisted metal panel to the floor with a crash.

Standing in the opening, heaving with breath, was Jared Nomak, looking like a creature from someone else’s nightmares. His eyes blazed and he bared his teeth, webbed with clots of red gore, and snarled at Tobias.

The contrast between this and the near-human she’d shared her bed with that morning was alarming, but despite his transformation to a terrifying monster from silver age cinema, Jared had come for her. And from the blood drenching the lower part of his face, a muddied blackish red, he’d torn his way through every obstacle in the blood bank to do it.

Tobias’s thumb dug against her bite marks, a near involuntary gesture, as if he drew comfort from them..

“Stay where you are,” Tobias snapped.

“Are you hurt?” Jared asked her, ignoring Tobias and locking his eyes with hers. She found solace in the steadiness of his stare, even though it blazed with a ferocity she’d never seen before, and fresh blood drooled from his bottom lip.

“He bit me, I tried to fight him…” her words were lost to a choked cough when Tobias’s thumb pressed into her trachea.

“Blood was exchanged,” Tobias said, gaining more confidence. “The girl is _mine_ , you have no claim to her.”

Jared’s entire body tensed.

“Anna doesn't belong to you, or anyone,” he said, baring his upper teeth.

When he took a step forward, she saw the guard’s broken body lying in a heap on the floor room behind him. A spreading stain of red soaked the white sheepskin rug under the dead man. It looked like he hadn't even had a chance to fire his gun.

“I’m warning you,” Tobias snarled, digging sharp fingernails into her jaw and twisting her head to the side uncomfortably. “Leave now unless you want to see her in pain. I‘ve shown restraint until now, but I don't need to kill her to make my point.”

That stopped Jared. Anna strained to see him from the awkward angle, needing to keep him in her sights. His face contorted to contain the wrath that seemed to spread almost palpably from him. His bloody hands tensed into claws at his sides.

“Jared, please don’t leave me,” Anna whimpered when the thought of being alone filled her with cold terror. Tobias covered her mouth and hooked three fingers inside of her lower jaw, gagging her with the unwelcome invasion.

“Shut your _fucking_ mouth,” he hissed into her ear. The fingers, impervious to her attempts to bite down, dug painfully into the soft tissue beneath her tongue. Her eyes watered and she felt her drool leak around them and down her chin.

“You don't know who I am?” Jared said quickly, drawing Tobias’s attention away from her.

“Should I?” Tobias asked. Somehow he managed to sound arrogant.

“Maybe not. Eli Damaskinos trusts few. I can see you're not one of them."

“What does this have to do with Damaskinos?” Tobias snapped, baited by his own conceit. He clutched her face, smearing saliva with the drying tears on her cheeks.

“If my father didn’t warn you about me," Jared said with a savage sneer and stepping forward, "then your death is on his hands as much as mine."

“Your father…” Tobias uttered, his grip on her faltering.

Anna barely absorbed what was being said. She just knew that at that moment, Tobias’s attention was on Nomak, and not so much on her. Anna slipped her hand into her satchel, and it closed around cold metal.

“My name is Jared Nomak. I'm the pure-blooded heir to Damaskinos's line, and the one who will end it."

Tobias’s armed tightened around her waist, oblivious to what she was doing.

“What does this have to do with me?” Tobias snarled. “Kill the Overlord if you wish, I don’t care. Another will rise to take his place.”

He didn’t notice when she slid her hand deeper into her bag and took the safety off, but Jared did. His eyes jumped between her hand and her face, questioning, and then realizing.

“It's not just him that I'm after,” Jared said, locking eyes with the vampire, demanding his focus. "Every one of your kind will join me or die until there aren't any of you left."

"My kind? The what the fuck are you exactly?" Tobias asked. His voice had risen in pitch and volume, all control gone.

Jared’s steadiness and the intensity of his words were chilling, but Anna found that they gave her strength. Behind her, Tobias had begun to breath fast and harsh, and she felt a trembling tension in his core. She believed Jared, and so did Tobias, who flinched when Jared took a step farther into the room.

"I'm something else. You can thank your Overlord for that."

Tobias started trembling.

“You'll be hunted,” Jared continued. His jaw quivered and Anna caught a glimpse of moist red flesh when the seam on his chin and throat began to separate slightly. “Like animals. Cowering in the dark places you used to rule. No one will escape my plague.”

Somewhere in the recesses of Parizska’s basement, there came a noise straight from the depths of hell. A shrieking, keening cry echoed from some distant hallway. And then another joined in from elsewhere. Nomak turned his head to listen.

Anna took the pistol grip in her hand and began to shift the gun’s barrel toward herself. Tobias’s ribs heaved behind her. The alarm bells cut off then, leaving an ominous silence.

“And what of Anna?” Tobias shot back. “It's already begun, you can't stop the process. She'll die, too!"

" _Process._ How clinical. Anna has nothing to fear from me, and she never will. But _you_ do.”

“ _You will never love her as I do_ ,” Tobias shouted, loud in her ear, flinging spittle as he clutched her tight against him, keeping her between them. “You don't know devotion. You’re a traitor to your own kind, a degenerate who lays with cattle, and I would sooner kill her than let you put your disgusting hands on her again.”

A cold sweat broke out on her forehead, and stars danced on the edges of her vision. With the world tilting and her limbs so heavy, Anna was having trouble positioning the gun. She just needed to give Jared an opening. Even if the bullet didn’t kill the vampire, firing it might give Jared the distraction he needed.

She willed her shaky, cold hand to cooperate as she positioned her finger over the trigger.

“Love,” Nomak said, stepping closer. Somewhere far behind him, more monstrous vocalizations rose eerily, and now they were in concert. “You aren't worthy to use that word. You aren't worthy of her.”

Tobias made a strangled noise, and then, clutching her so tightly the breath was squeezed out of her lungs.

“I won’t let you have her,” Tobias spat. His face twisted and he bared his fangs, priming to bite her neck.

Jared moved toward them, and she pulled the trigger at the same instant.

A muffled explosion deafened her, and her hand wrenched back from the recoil.

Tobias’s hold on her released, and Anna fell to the floor. She was unaware of anything but the searing hot pain in her side, and the intense throb of her hand for a brief time.

Tobias fell against the wall, clutching his stomach where the bullet had torn a hole. A smear of blackish-red blood coated the concrete behind him as he slid to the floor, growling in shock and pain.

Arms clad in deerhide picked her up and pulled her backward. A soft, warm shell encompassed her. It smelled like smoke and iron.

“Anna,” Jared said through the ringing in her ears. Arms clutched her tightly, a body rocked her, and she looked up to see Jared, eyes blazing from black sockets. His white skin almost seemed to glow. There was fresh blood on his hands. “You’re so cold.”

“You saved me,” she said, hating the despair she saw in his face.

“No,” he whispered quickly, shaking his head. “You saved me.”

A noise on the other side of the room made her look. Tobias, still holding his wound, started to rise. Jared carefully pulled her backwards. Unconcerned with the vampire, Jared propped her against the wall. He quickly removed his coat and, handling her carefully, wrapped her in its warmth. It was incredible, like a furnace or an electric blanket. She leaned back against the wall, so tired, and let his scent and body heat surrounded her and fill her nose. In her bleariness, she thought to try and hold pressure over the wet, throbbing pain in her side underneath the coat.

“My love,” Tobias wailed, looking at her with unparalleled anguish. Red-stained tears streamed down his face, soaked into the deep-set lines around his mouth. “I wasn’t going to kill you! We are meant to be together you and I, forever… don’t you see? You will die without me. And I am nothing without you.”

Anna closed her eyes, dizzy and nauseous.

She didn’t want to hear his voice anymore. She didn’t want to feel anything anymore, and in a few moments, she might not have to, as hard as it was to stay awake.

“You _are_ nothing,” she said, looking Tobias in the eye, but he just continued to shake his head, in disbelief.

She squeezed Jared’s blood-tacky hand, a wordless communication, or permission, that he seemed to understand.

With her back rested against the wall, the long figure beside her unfolded until he stood, a looming shadow in the sterile concrete space.

Tobias’s face was twisted with rage, eyes wide and animalistic as he threw himself at Nomak.

Tobias’s fist hit Nomak on the side of the head, but Jared scarcely even jerked. Instead, he smiled wolfishly.

Taking Tobias’s neck in hand, Jared threw him over the top of the desk and into the wall on the other side. The vampire’s body left a shallow dent before it fell heavily to the floor.

Tobias flew to his feet, his sheer shirt hanging from him in shreds, and shoved the heavy wooden desk into Nomak.

Nomak hurled it aside with a resounding crash, almost too easily. Filing cabinets fell, scattering papers that wafted to the ground.

“You are _nothing_ ,” Nomak repeated Anna’s words in a growl while the splinters and wood dust settled. Tobias snarled, but shrank back.

Jared lunged and threw him to the floor. Straddling him, he began to strike him with his fists. Over the meaty smack of knuckles pounding bone, the snarling noises Jared made were inhuman. Something in Nomak’s bearing changed. Anger melted into vicious pleasure, and his eyes seemed to spark with reflected light, as though incensed by the carnage he was creating.

Anna was going to pass out, she knew by the way her hands and face felt clammy, and the trouble she was having maintaining pressure on the wound in her side as the strength in her arm waned. But through it, she was transfixed by the gratuitous assault playing out before her. The sight of Tobias trying, and failing to fight back was surreal, and a dark place inside of her trembled with satisfaction. The raw violence Nomak was carrying out was objectively horrific, but she couldn’t separate the context of the vampire getting beaten brutally before her.

Jared swatted aside Tobias’s every attempt to defend, breathing in open-mouthed growls. Tobias’s blood splattered his face with every impact and Nomak’s pink tongue darted to lick it away from his lips.

His hands now wrapped about Tobias’s throat, strangling him or holding him still while blood bubbled from the vampire’s ruined nose and drooled from the opening of his mouth, rimmed with broken teeth.

Jared’s spine bowed, and he curled forward, groaning from deep in his chest.

Some quality in that noise cut through her torpor. Before her eyes, Nomak’s face was changing. She watched the dark seam in his chin ripple.

The front of his lower jaw began to separate along that line. The split continued down to his throat as the lower part of his face spread wider and opened.

The two halves parted, revealing the fleshy red, glistening tissue of the inside of his throat and cheeks. Spines unfolded, dripping with viscous liquid.

She couldn’t comprehend the sight of his face, or what it had become. Except his eyes. Those were unmistakably his, though the expression in them was monstrous.

One of Tobias’s eyes peered up at Jared from the pulpy, writhing mess of the surrounding face as it tried to heal itself, and he began to shriek, the raw, blood-curdling sound of a frightened animal.

A thick appendage winded its way out of the base of the maw, and its tip opened like petals, uncovering wicked spikes at the ends. Anna didn’t dare breathe.

Jared fell upon Tobias, fastening the slavering maw over his neck. Spines latched into Tobias’s skin, and agonized screams erupted beneath it, before they were cut short with a moist crunch.

The body beneath Jared convulsed.

After that, there was silence apart from the wet, slurping sounds of Jared feasting.

There was a crack, and Nomak drew back, fleshy wings of his throat maw rippling and quavering. Tobias’s head flopped back at an unnatural angle, attached only by his exposed spine.

But still he lived. In Anna’s horror, she could see that even this grisly damage wasn’t enough to end Tobias’s life.

His eyes goggled, unseeing, and his mouth worked noiselessly, blood bubbling and frothing at the corners. Black blood oozed from the open wound that was his neck.

Nomak sat up, chest heaving, by all appearances consumed by the carnage, and forced his fingertips into Tobias’s chest. Bone cracked and muscle tore as his hands plunged deep. With a breathy grunt, Nomak wrenched apart his ribcage, tearing into him.

His hands delved inside the cavity, gushing blood, and found a lump of firm red flesh, tearing it from the veins and arteries and ligaments that held it in place.

He held it up before him, eyes glittering with fierce appetite as he watched the organ give a terminal twitch, and then brought it to the writhing throat appendage. The halves of his face came together, hooked into it, and squeezed, crushing it with a burst of blood. Jared choked back a guttural noise as his face closed, blood and pulp sluicing from the narrow slit as he worked to swallow the last of it. His throat bobbed, and he brought his shaking fingers to his lips, eyes half closed in apparent ecstasy.

Beneath Jared, Tobias’s mutilated body began to blacken, glowing like embers. It disintegrated into burning ash and caved in, collapsing on itself like a charred paper shell. Ash caught the minute currents in the air and began to slowly settle over everything.

Anna’s vision swam and she felt her body slump back against the wall.

Jared was before her, eyes like points of white fire, drenched in blood and sticky ash.

“Anna,” he whispered, cupping her face with a sticky, damp hand. His skin was so hot, it felt good against her cheek. “Stay awake, Anna.”

Anna couldn’t promise anything.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she rasped, trying to smile as she looked up into his face. She closed her eyes.

\-------------

### 11:21 PM, Friday

Nomak gathered the small body, bundled in his coat and bore her away from there with such speed that all around him was a blur. Light blended with shadow, gravity had little bearing, and no obstacle could slow him. Now that he’d revealed himself on camera, to force Damaskinos to act, he wasn’t concerned with putting on a show for the security feeds.

The power rushed like overflowing gutters in a storm, and with every passing second he felt himself grow stronger. Action and thought were nearly one and the same, instantaneous and effortless, enacted by the power of will and whim. Sounds and smells were sharp, overwhelming as his senses became engorged with the ancient blood coursing through him.

The melange of blood, rotten and fresh, that he’d smelled when entering the blood bank was more distinct. He smelled, by the ash that had settled on Anna’s hair, that the vampire he’d killed had been nearly two centuries old. He smelled the stain of adrenaline and fear that lingered over his path of destruction, the pungent odor when one of the mortal familiars had soiled himself in his death throes, and the familiar yet cowering in a hidden room, stinking of his owner.

Nomak had other concerns, but he knew the mortal would probably not make it out of the blood bank alive.

Nomak had never felt such power. He felt _invincible_.

But through it all, his every thought was for the body he carried. The precious human he carried in his arms was far from indestructible. His every desire was to ensure the heart continued to beat in her breast, the breaths continued to whisper through her lips, and that she would wake.

For all his imbued vitality, Nomak could not conquer death. Anna’s only hope was a medical procedure to replace the blood she’d lost, something she might have been able to assist with, had she been awake.

He needed to go, but he needed to help her. She’d already done so much, but despite her strength, she was so, so fragile.

Time seemed to stand still as Nomak searched the labyrinthine basement level for what she needed. The seconds stretched, every one of them perhaps her last.

He could taste her blood in his mouth still. The leech’s heart had been saturated with her stolen essence. In his voracity, Nomak had gorged himself on on the vampire’s blood, taking into himself hers as well. It shamed him to discover that her blood was as sweet as the rest of her, but it was the last time he would let himself know that taste.

She needed a fresh infusion. As he cradled her, he sought out the blood stores, following the iron-trail hanging in the air like a neon sign. He placed her gently on the floor and tore the refrigerated door from its hinges, revealing shelves upon shelves, packaged and ready for distribution.

He took the three freshest pouches of O-negative, unsure exactly how much she might need, and slipped them inside his clothes. Against his skin, his temporary body heat would warm them. He swept medical supplies into an empty trash can and took the bag out, and then he plucked Anna from the floor. She was far too pale, and her cheek was cool to the touch.

All the while, horror lurked in the corners of his perception.

He’d seen it before. He knew that the two newly infected reapers were confused and coming to terms with the agony of a hunger that could never truly be sated. His monstrous offspring would know nothing but that all-consuming need to feed.

If there even were a conscious mind lingering somewhere in their tainted brains, they would know that it wasn’t mercy that had spared them a true death. It was malice.

He ascended the stairs to the upper floor, knowing that his cursed brood would feed upon the corpses he’d left behind, compelled by instinct and design to obey him.

It was not a true control. No, Nomak had surrendered that the moment he’d given in to the desire to contaminate the ones he didn’t destroy. All he could do was mitigate the chaos that was born of his actions.

He kicked open the doors to the lobby and was surprised to find that some destitute and hopeful donors had remained in the waiting room, despite the unexpected departure of all the clinic workers.

“The blood bank is closed,” Nomak growled to them as he headed to the front door.

None of them wanted to question the nightmarish abomination covered in blood and carrying a limp body in his arms, and when the keening cries of the other Reapers echoed through the interior doors behind him, they fled.

Through it all, Anna was unaware. He had little time, and her apartment might not be safe. So he took her to the first place he could think of, straight to the heart of the first district.

“I have you,” he whispered to her over the rushing of the wind around them. Her eyelids fluttered in the flickering street lights racing by, and he held her closer to him.

\--------

### Time Unknown

Sounds rushed up from the depths. Anna was paralyzed to the nightmares of teeth at her throat, snapping mandibles and savage shrieks as some unseen terror encroached. She thrashed fitfully, felt herself begin to surface when the sharp tug of pain cut through the deep darkness with clarity, only to be soothed into unfeeling semi-consciousness by warmth and a murmur in an unknown tongue.

The nightmares faded.

She let herself drift there, barely conscious. It was warm, and dark. Something was on the edges of her awareness, something unpleasant, so she left it there.

As naturally as breathing, Anna’s mind started to slowly come online.

She stirred to alleviate a soreness in her joints, unwilling to emerge from the darkness of her closed eyes just yet. She breathed deep, and through her sense of smell, the first impressions of the world began to materialize around her.

She smelled dust, and cooking grease. Burned rubber, and leather, and sweat. She smelled smoke, and blood.

Fabric rustled when she moved again. She became aware of her body’s weight. She was laying on something soft, atop something firm. Was she home? Her eyes cracked open, expecting to see the light streaming through her window on the bedroom wall.

Instead, she saw blue shadows cut by dim yellow light. She wasn’t on her bed, but on a floor. She could feel a hard surface underneath her through the layers of blankets, or coats. She closed her eyes unwilling to expend the energy to think.

“You’re safe.”

The first words, spoken in a smooth, gritty voice, like gravel and warm honey, were soothing to her. She opened her eyes again, blinked away the fog.

“Where…”

“Beneath the Old Town Hall,” came the answer from somewhere nearby.

“Jared?”

Her voice was a dry croak, strained and sore. She tried to turn to see him, but doing so sent a knife of pain through her from her right side. It was brief, but startling until she remembered the gun. She'd missed, she thought with a spike of fear. But the pain she felt was nothing compared to if it had been a direct gut shot.

“Don’t move too much, Anna. You’ve been through a lot.”

Images rushed through her mind, and she clutched her hand around the thick, soft thing she was bundled in. It was a large coat, with short, coarse fur on the outside. There’d been blood, so much blood… lips on her neck, teeth. The visceral emotions tied to the images hit her like a punch in the stomach and she uttered a sob.

She whimpered his name again. She didn’t want to be alone.

A hand lighted on her head, stroked her hair.

“You’re safe here,” he repeated from behind her. The movements of his hand were tentative, but comforting all the same.

“Tobias..."

“He’ll never hurt you again,” was the answer. She remembered the blood, then, and behind her eyelids, she saw it again.

Wet bone snapped, so sharp in a small space that she felt it in her teeth.

Her eyes flew open, fixed on the dim yellow lighting, pouring through shadow, but apart from the distant sound of the traffic above traveling through the stone, there was silence. The sound was a memory, it wasn’t happening now, but she could still smell the blood. And… the fear, sharp and pungent in the stifling air of that room under the blood bank.

Tobias was dead.

Relief washed over her, but it met the cold dread of the thing she had been avoiding. She could no longer ignore how her wrist and neck throbbed.

“Am I going to be okay,?” she asked, moisture streaming from her eyes, over the bridge of her nose and to the seam between her cheek and the soft thing underneath her head.

“I've found blood to replace what you lost,” he replied. Why was he staying out of her sight? “You're awake now.“

She moved her arm, felt the sharp pull, and peered down where a catheter was hooked into her skin, held in place with medical tape. It was neat, almost professional. Her head fell back onto the pillow. She saw the discarded package for medical bandage tape, a half-full bottle of ethyl alcohol, and bloody gauze turning brown as it dried. She could almost imagine, by the scattered mess he’d left, Jared’s desperation in treating her wounds.

“I cleaned and covered the bullet wound as well as I could. It was shallow, it will heal.”

“And… the bites?” She stared straight ahead.

The hand stroking her hair faltered. The punctures on her wrist and neck itched, she could feel them through the gauze taped over them.

“Those may not heal so easily.”

As many times as she'd been bitten, she would likely have scars. She'd always have a reminder of her ordeal.

“He was going to make me a vampire,” she said in a flat voice.

“Did you drink his blood?” Jared asked.

His voice was neutral, but the absence of his comforting caress made the tightness in her chest worsen. She remembered Tobias’s lips on her, the way he had possessed her, how thoroughly he’d trapped her, manipulated her, violated her… and she started to weep.

“ _Anuška_...” Jared murmured, close to her ear.

A hand slid over the upper arm lying on the coat she was wrapped in but stopped shy of the IV line on the inside of her elbow. She followed the red line to where a plastic pouch was hung from an iron ring set into the stone ceiling above. It was nearly empty, and another was laying on the floor beneath it, completely drained. From the label, she could see he’d known to use the universal phenotype.

He had managed to save her life, again.

“Let me see you.”

“I don’t want to scare you,” he said, almost too quiet to hear.

“Please."

He took a shaky breath. A figure crawled on hands and knees around her head and to her front. Jared, in his grey hoodie, lay on his side facing her on the hard floor, with his cheek resting on his folded arm, close but without touching.

He wore his hood. His back was to the light, a dim yellow caged bulb on the old brick wall.

Shadows pooled in the hollows of his eyes and cheeks. He’d cleaned the blood off, but something was different about him. The veins and shadows were deeper, his lips as dark as the line on his chin, and his eyes… there was some quality in the soft points that glinted in them. They were too reflective.

But it was him.

“Touch me,” she whispered. Jared sat unmoving for a moment, long enough that she thought he might not.

He brought a hesitant hand to her hair instead, smoothing it back over her ear. She focused on the gentle pull of his fingertips through the strands, as he carefully untangled the minute knots so they wouldn’t hurt, then stroking the shaved part of her scalp.

The repetitive sensation, with minor variation, pulled her focus to it like a moth to a warm light.

It grounded her, Anna closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath. She kept doing it until they became steadier and easier.

“He kept cutting his wrist. He wanted me to drink,” she said when she was ready. She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye as she recounted this. “But I didn’t do it. I refused him every time. He… threatened me, my dad. He knew things about me. He knew what to say. But he didn't force me.”

“You didn't give in,” Jared said.

“It didn’t matter. He tricked me. He put his blood in a drink. I didn't know, I couldn't taste it.”

She chewed on her lip, and made herself stop.

“You’re very brave, Anna. And so strong.”

More than her physical pains was the horror that there was poison inside of her, and had been for hours. What havoc it had already begun wreaking on her, she couldn’t know.

“No I'm not. I'm scared, Jared. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be one of them. I don’t know what to do.”

"You won’t die. I won't let you.” He moved closer and she felt the warmth radiating from him as he brought his face closer to hers, just barely not touching. His breath was hot and smelled of iron.

“You kill vampires,” she said, her eyes opening, searching his shadowed face, too close to focus. “What if I turn into one?”

“I will _never_ hurt you." His voice was choked. When he spoke again, it was steadier. “No matter what, Anna, you don't need to be afraid of me. Even if... if you change.”

“If?" she asked, seizing desperately on any hope. 

Nomak kept steady and gave her something to anchor her in the present.

“I don’t want to give you false hope."

“Just tell me the truth.”

He watched his hand as it stroked her arm.

“Vampirism is a disease. You can be born with it like I was, or it can be spread to you. Like any sickness, a healthy human body can resist and fight back. His bites and your drink might not have been enough. It's possible... that is, there is a small chance that you will come through this without changing."

“How long until I know?”

“Within three days.”

Three agonizing days, waiting to see if Tobias's contamination had spread. Three days to know if she'd be a monster. Three days may as well have been an eternity.

“There goes my weekend,” she said.

Nomak laughed, almost startled, and so did Anna. That was a good noise, and it soothed her heart. Tentatively, Jared touched her forehead with his. Anna responded by nudging his cheek with her nose, luxuriating in the heat. He was her own personal space heater.

"I'm sorry you had to see that, back at the blood bank."

“I’m not afraid of you," she said without hesitating.

“How..? You saw… everything. You saw what I became. What I did.”

“I didn’t understand what I was seeing. I was a little scared at first. But... I knew it was you. I knew what you were going to do. And I wanted you to do it.”

Her eyes fell on the mark. He didn’t move as she brought her hand to his chin, without jarring the hook inside her elbow, and she touched it. She thought back to how the flesh and bone and peeled back like the petals of a carnal flower, exposing the organs somehow so perfectly suited to both savagery and more delicate manipulations.

“You really are something else, aren’t you?” she asked. It seemed like the chill that had permeated her after Tobias had fed upon her was now relegated to distant memory. She felt so warm, now, even in the cool, damp air inside the ancient brick walls of the cellar.

“Their name for my condition is the Reaper strain,” he answered, watching her. His face was still drawn, but some of the hardness in his expression had softened. “Only vampires can change, and only if I choose to spread it. Before tonight, I had chosen not to."

"And tonight, you did."

Nomak was silent for a moment, and his eyes dropped. With his lids down, his eye sockets looked like black holes.

“Yes,” he answered without inflection, though Anna could sense his shame. “They forced my hand by involving you. I intend to use every weapon they gave me to destroy them. Even if it destroys me, too.”

Anna’s lip trembled as she ran her thumb along his jawline. Some subtle tension began to soften in his face.

“I don't want that to happen,” she said, trying to keep control of her voice so he wouldn’t hear the pain his words caused her. Jared's mouth curved into a rueful smile.

“You would be the only one,” he said without self-pity. She smiled and stroked his cheek, not sure what to say to this.

 

"When did..." she faltered and nodded toward him. "When did they do this to you?"

“It took time. It was a ' _process_.' They started in 1982. I only escaped a week ago..." he laughed humorlessly. "Almost to the day, actually."

"So long," she breathed, unable to grasp what that would be like. Two decades without seeing the sky.

"Not so long to a vampire, but to me...”

"How old are you?"

"I didn't know until I saw the date after my escape. I'm 67, now.Very young."

Anna slid her hand over his cheekbone. Strange that his skin could look so cold, but feel so feverishly hot.

"You're younger than my grandpa," she said with a smirk. "I guess I can live with that."

“I wasn't kind before,” he answered carefully, meeting her eyes. “You wouldn't have liked me very much.”

She was curious to know more, but she didn't want to pry, especially for how much recalling it seemed to sadden him.

"I don't know that person," she said, stroking his cheek. "But this one saved me. And I definitely like him."

Nomak closed his eyes, turned his face into her hand, and kissed her palm. The feather-light touch sent shivers down her arm, a startling and pleasant contrast to the discomfort of the IV, and the soreness on her side.

Something echoed in the darkness behind her, a scurrying and scraping, and she gave a start.

"Don't be afraid."

Comprehension dawned, though she couldn't crane her neck to see anything beyond shadow. It was his offspring. Whatever he’d created in the depths of the blood bank had followed them here and now prowled somewhere in the basement with them. 

“They won’t harm you. Or anyone, unless I tell them to."

Despite his reassurance, Anna was frightened. Low, whining vocalizations echoed through doorways into other chambers.

“They sound like they're in pain,” she said, almost too scared to breathe.

“They probably are," he said without inflection. "Only blood can bring relief. Vampire blood is best.”

He was talking about the reapers, but she could tell he was speaking from personal experience. The thought that Jared was in pain beneath the surface troubled her.

“So... they can feed on humans?"

"We can feed on anything with blood," he said. The switch from 'they' to 'we' was almost jarring. Of course. He was one of them, and he didn't seem to want her to forget that.

There were some dead bodies that didn't turn to ash, she remembered now. The guard in the hallway, and in Tobias's sitting room. She tried to muster some horror about it, but a numbness had begun to take the place of her emotions.

"You killed humans tonight."

“They were familiars. Mortals that were willing to die for their masters. They're not worth mourning. They would sell out their fellow humans to be a vampire's lapdog.”

She brushed the pad of her thumb over the seam in his chin, and she stared at it, fascinated. His lips had darkened to almost the same hue, like a bruise, and she touched them next. The tip of his tongue darted out and wet his lower lip.

She didn’t think about it, she just pushed herself forward and caught his mouth with hers. Her hand cupped the back of his neck under his hood and held him close, and the ripples of pleasure grew stronger, and now traveled down her back. She opened her mouth, to taste him, starving for it. After some hesitation, his tongue met hers.

She tried to move closer, to touch more of him, but the pain in her side, and the catheter tube hooked to her arm cut through the need with sharp clarity and she gasped.

“You need to rest,” he said in a breathy whisper.

Anna shook her head. She ignored the discomfort in her arm and lifted the coat to bring him inside of it.

“Make me feel something good, Jared,” she said. It was a gentle demand. She was desperate to quell the tide of exhaustion and fear, and to stop the emotions that were rising in a solid lump in her throat. Nomak pushed himself forward, watching her.

“It can never be like it was,” he said as she covered them both. “Things are-”

“Different now. I know.”

Jared took an unsteady breath.

“Anna, I’m so sorry-” he started, but she silenced him with her lips.

When his hand traveled down her arm and took her hand, she squeezed it. The action set off a chain reaction whereupon every square inch of her needed to touch him. Impatiently, she ripped the catheter hook out of her arm, hissing for the sting, and covered the puncture wound left behind with the piece of tape that had held it in place.

Now that her arm was freed, she slipped it under the blanket and sought the edge of his grey hoodie. Her fingers found the bare skin of his stomach, and the quivering tension in his muscles and pushed her body against his.

Nomak was breathing hard, and then his kisses became more urgent. She slipped her knee between his thighs and pressed it up into his groin. When she felt the hardness of him through his soft pants, she moved her hand down and kneaded the firmness beneath the fabric.

"Your injuries... I don't want to hurt you."

She tilted her hips, panting for the way her body’s aches and pains seemed lost to the tide of heat growing in her chest and between her legs.

“Then don’t move,” she whispered, breathless. She maneuvered both of her hands to the waistband of his pants and pushed it down without ceremony. She planted kisses on his lips, darting her tongue to stroke the dark seam on his chin and following it to his neck as her hands delved down and found swollen, scalding flesh.

The knob in his throat bobbed and his head stretched back, exposing more of his skin to her mouth and tongue, and when she felt the puckered scar of his seam tighten and stretch, she didn’t shy away from it, remembering how thoroughly he’d used it to devour Tobias’s evil heart.

She gripped his shaft in one hand and squeezed while the other moved beneath and took careful hold of his soft fleshy sack. The plaintive noise he made drove her forward, and downward.

Ignoring the pain in her side, she curled beneath the dark cover of his large coat, moistening her lips. Sprawled, tangled on the floor with her forehead on his belly, Anna started to stroke his length, swiping a gob of spit over the head. With a careful grip on his scrotum, Anna brought her mouth to the hot, musky warmth of his cock.

She took the bulb between her lips, sucking every trace of his taste from the moist flesh, incensed by the way his smell filled her lungs in the stifling air beneath the coat. The muscular stomach tightened over her, and Nomak’s breaths came fast. Hands slipped through her hair, just shy of pulling it, and she took more of him into her mouth, pushing down the discomfort of agitating her sores for the pure, sweet pleasure of hearing Jared react to what she was doing to him.

He was restrained, but Anna accepted that it was taking his self control not to interfere in any way. As she pulled him deep, jaw aching, throat muscles cramped, Anna remembered the way he’d looked after tearing through the room to get to her. She’d never forget the unadulterated wrath radiating from him, held in check by his stoic willpower. And now, the careful way he accepted this intimate gift without grasping for more, it filled her with a tragic sense of understanding of what he was.

They were both forever changed, and no matter what happened to her over the next three days, nothing would ever be the same.

His hips strained and his legs opened. Anna pushed against him so that he’d lay on his back, and he complied. The brown deerhide coat slipped off of her. Cool air filled her lungs and she emerged from the darkness with her moist eyes open and fixed on the body of the man over her.

Jared’s hoodie was halfway unzipped, and the sharp, prominent ribs heaved and shuddered. Anna pulled her lips back to the tip, squeezing his shaft with her fist as she went, watching him toss his head back. When he looked down at her, his hood had fallen. Every inch of exposed skin was pallid white mottled with dark veins, more severe than she’d ever seen it. But it was alive under her touch. His muscles jumped and twitched and he grimaced when she tongued the slit at the head of his cock. She plunged down around it once more, swallowing him as deep as she could.

Jared groaned something in his strange language, and then whispered her name. His voice speaking with such breathless reverence injected molten heat into her spine.

She pushed herself unsteadily to her knees atop of the layers of piled coats, letting his cock fall out of her mouth and bob heavily against his taut abdomen. He looked down at her, and seeing her trying to tear her shirt over her head, struggling with stiff muscles and aches deep in her joints, he pushed himself up and helped her. She unzipped his hoodie and reached forward to kiss the deep trench over his breastbone, between the bony ridges of his ribs as she fought to open her fly.

“Anna-” Nomak's plea was lost in a gasp when she tongued his nipple. She nearly lost her balance in her efforts to pull her tight pants over her hips without agitating the bandaged wound on her side.

“Help me,” she said, and after a moment, he pushed himself up and did as she told him.

He gently peeled her pants over her thighs and she maneuvered to get his hoodie off completely. The jeans were removed and kicked aside, and she ran her hands over his broad shoulders, tentatively sliding them around the back where her fingertips brushed the edge of the fleshy crescent-shaped mounds over his shoulder blades.

Nomak panted, fast and shallow through his teeth as he let her choose the pace, and only held his hands on her hips to steady her when she crawled forward to straddle him.

Leaning over him with her black hair falling like a curtain to one side, she locked eyes with him. Their mouths crushed together simultaneously and she brought her torso close to him, pressing her bra against his hard chest.

Her hands slid over the protruding flesh on his back, finding them rough and moist as a tongue, and coated in a silky, oily substance. It had no scent but it left her skin feeling warm and faintly tingly. She skimmed her forearms over the short spines that seemed to erupt from the center of them as she sat back against his cock so that it bumped the cleft of her ass through her underwear.

As they kissed, Nomak tasted her as though he were ravenous but stopped short of demanding more, and his continued caution only drove her toward urgency.

She let go of his shoulders and, reaching behind her, took the base of his cock in hand. With her other hand, she pulled aside the moisture-saturated crotch of her underwear.

Somewhere behind her, echoing in the stairwell outside of the doorway, she heard animalistic growls and hissing moans, closer. She turned to look just in time to see dark shapes prowling outside the door, crouched and pacing. Points of red reflected light flared when the light hit them at just the right angle. They hovered there beyond the door, a pair of beasts maintaining cautious distance.

“They are no threat to us,” Jared said, his voice tense. “Please don’t be frightened.”

Try as she might, she couldn't shake the way their eerie presence made the hairs rise on her arms.

“We can stop,” Jared said. He was anxious, concerned. It was infuriating. She wasn't so fragile as to be undone by something like this, not after everything.

Anna swallowed the dryness in her throat. She couldn’t see them but in glimpses, but what she saw was a grotesque extreme of what Jared had become. Pale, gaunt, bony bodies, hollow eyes with overly reflective pupils, like ghostly wolves caught in the edge of a flashlight’s beam.

They watched and lurked, rattling and hissing on the platform outside the door, but they didn’t come any nearer.

Anna turned away from them with some reluctance, to see Jared watching her, not them, with apprehension.

She adjusted her grip on his shaft and held herself above it. When the head was poised at her entrance, she braced on his chest. He let her push him down flat on his back with little effort, keeping his burning eyes on hers. His hands slid down to her hips where they sat there, curled around them without force.

He slid past her entrance when she lowered her hips upon him. The way was slick, and she moved slowly, savoring the way his stomach shuddered as she enveloped him halfway. The way he panted, eyes rolling back, but lay otherwise completely still as she rose up and then pushed down a little farther.

All of his frightening power, held at bay with such care, such tenderness. She sank onto him, savoring the ache when she felt herself pull taut to accommodate him. Gravity lodged him hard against her inner wall. She took a deep, shuddering breath, waiting for the remnants of her lightheadedness to dissipate, adjusting to the sensation of being filled by him.

The thought of using a condom only occurred to her when she started to move atop him. At the moment, other concerns seemed paramount. It might not even matter in a few days, so she enjoyed the rawness of this uncomplicated bliss.

“Hold me tight,” she said in a breath. Jared did as she asked, never once moving his eyes from her face as his hands gripped her hips. With him buried inside of her, holding her steady, Anna began to rock her hips, finding her pace slowly, taking care of the wound in her side, and the strain she was feeling in every muscle.

Heat began to pool in her lower spine, and the pain didn’t matter so much anymore when her nerves began to glow. Despite the chill of the air inside the tower Anna started to sweat. Her spine curved and her stomach tightened.

Jared wheezed, his hands tightening and loosening on the meat of her hips, fingertips sinking into the yielding skin.

In the edges of her vision, the shadows moved around them. Eyes glowed in the dark, blinking, and coarse breathing that was not coming from her or Jared mingled with the sounds of their bodies sliding together. The two Reapers were in the room with them, staying distant but watchful.

Animals, seeing, but whether they comprehended, Anna couldn’t say.

She didn’t care, even with the edge of fear their unearthly presence instilled in her, she ignored them. Beneath her, Jared had begun to pull her hips down against him, lifting his pelvis ever so slightly so that he cock struck her deep. His legs fell open and his back arched as he strained to lay still. Anna didn’t tell him to stop. Instead, she held her bandaged side with one hand and leaned forward.

She kissed his lips as she worked her hips onto him, thighs splayed to pierce herself harder atop him. They fell into a rhythm, moving in perfect sync, meeting one another halfway with each thrust as their lips and tongues tasted and drank one another’s breaths thirstily. Each impact deep inside of her ratcheted up the consuming hunger for more.

His tongue curled and writhed, separating tentatively into individual strands, and she welcomed it, sucked on it, savored this part of him. She thought of the thick throat organ inside of him and began to tongue the seam on his bottom lip. Some perverse part of her wanted to see it again, and as if obliging her unspoken desire, she felt the skin on his lower lip begin to separate.

Nomak groaned helplessly, his careful movements becoming less regular, hands kneading the flesh of her hips and sliding back around to her ass, as she pulled the point of her tongue along his scar, feeling the skin part beneath it like a zipper.

He threw his head back as she sucked on the separating skin under his jaw, ran her tongue over the inside flesh. It was coarse along the seam, but inside… soft like the interior of a cheek, salty and sweet like spit. A soft click accompanied the gentle parting of bone.

He tried to say her name, but his lips weren’t able to form normal speech and it came out as a hoarse throaty sound.

“Show me,” she gasped, grinding down on him as fear and trepidation burned in her chest, and gave every sensation a more intense edge. Nomak panted, and in his eyes, she saw a ripple of fear.

“Don’t… be… afraid...” he managed to make his mouth say.

“I'm not,” she said.

She kissed his forehead and pulled back, slowing the rocking of her hips.

He watched for her reaction as the two halves of his lower jaw peeled apart and back. But she wasn’t disgusted. She was fascinated. She could see the spines tucked away at the edges, and as the rift yawned wide, the thick throat organ undulated. Its tip was splayed open, and the delicate tongue tendrils writhed from inside.

Anna breathed harder. He was exposing himself, opening himself to her. He was literally baring his throat for her, letting her see inside of him in a way she could never experience with anyone else. The sight of the expanses of pink flesh, glistening naked and swollen did something to her, deep down to her core.

Anna’s pussy tightened around Jared and he uttered a noise that seemed to come straight from his chest and through the open maw. She leaned down, locked his eyes with hers, and when his fibrous tongue tendrils emerged, she let them push between her lips.

Nomak’s sounds were deep and rough when she began to ride him again. His hot breath buffeted her face as he thrust his hips up into her, and soon their bodies rocked together, sweat-slicked and gliding, skin slapping skin. His fingers sank into the fleshy swell of her buttocks, moving her with him. She tongued every part of his mouth that she could reach, and shivers spilled down her arms and back when she felt the edges of his mandibles flutter against the sides of her face, like the touch of tentative fingertips along her jaw.

She was surprised when she realized that her eyelashes were moist, not with sweat, but unspilled tears. When she opened her eyes to him, she could see that his were pinched, and that he peered up at her with a wet seam of dark red gathering on the inner corners. As she watched, they leaked over, trailing red stains behind them.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, though whether it was meant for him or for her, she wasn’t sure. She pressed her forehead against his and concentrated on the burgeoning heat at the place where their bodies were joined. His jaw closed together enough for his lips to start to work against hers, delicate tentacles swirling through the narrow seam under his mouth, tickling her chin.

Anna felt her body tense, the ratcheting intensity, and the priming of every nerve ending, and the culmination of burdens she didn’t even realize she was bearing.

The fluttering warmth writhing in her belly flared, and Anna came with a helpless moan against Jared’s mouth.

Waves of sweet, eclipsing warmth washed over her, and her mind was wiped blessedly clear for that instant.

He pumped his hips up into her through her shockwaves and she gave herself over to his relentless pace, falling upon him bonelessly as he drew out her ecstasy with his persistence, pushing himself deep inside of her until she felt the echo of his presence in her chest.

Jared took her body and carefully turned them both to the side. He slipped out of her, and with one hand on her hip, his forehead and nose touching hers, he tugged rapidly on his cock. His breaths came in great seething gasps between his teeth. She watched him pleasure himself, planting soft kisses on his forehead, nose, and mouth.

His shoulders tightened and the firm head of his cock bobbed against her stomach, smearing her heated skin with cool moisture. He came with a strangled grunt.

Shuddering, hot spurts of pinkish, pearlescent fluid painted the front of her stomach and she held herself closer to him to let him finish on her, squeezing the last drops to roll down her skin with the rest of it.

Afterward, Jared cupped her jaw with the hand that had been on her hip, and he breathed against her.

His face was whole again, as if it always had been. He planted soft kisses on her eyelids, and she accepted them. When he tilted onto his back, she let him pull her with him so that her cheek rested on his chest.

She let his come dry on her belly, enjoying the small token of their intimacy, and his consideration for the fact that he hadn’t let himself come inside of her. He stroked her back. She heard the sounds of the other reapers moving about on the edges of the room, but she wasn’t concerned with them.

Somewhere on the floors above, she heard the clock tower chime. It was four in the morning.

“We can’t stay here,” she said, dreading even the thought moving.

“We'll be safe until tomorrow evening. Rest, now.”

She nodded, but something still troubled her.

“Nomak…” she started, and faltered, afraid to ask what was on her mind.

His hand drew down her back, heavy and soothing. He reached and pulled his overcoat over her again as she found the words. She cleared her throat.

“Will you stay with me…? Until… I know?”

“Yes,” he answered. “My war can wait. They'll need time to recover. And I'll need time to prepare.”

Inside of her, the relief she felt knowing that she had more time with him was tempered by the fact that those days would be occupied with uncertainties of whether or not she would come out alive on the other side, and by the fact that this strange, beautiful thing they shared wouldn't last.

Anna felt herself start to cry, quietly, and Jared pulled her close, wrapped his warm body around hers.

Maybe the day’s events had finally hit her. Maybe it was the comfort of being held next to his solidity, listening to his heart beat steadily and strong, protected in the circle of his arms. Maybe it was his silent acceptance of her pain, and his understanding, but any barriers that Anna had erected to maintain her composure crumbled, nestled against him beneath the warm cover of his coat.

She closed her eyes and focused on the way his fingers stroked her hair, and the words he was saying. She understood his soothing voice well enough, even if not every word. She felt it reverberate in his chest, smooth and rough and deep, and imagined she were nestled deep in the hard shell of his chest where it was warm and dark.

By the time she fell asleep, she was blissfully numb, and untroubled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to FancyLadySnackCakes for her unerring support and feedback!


	7. 4AM, Saturday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small snippet from another POV >800 words, to prepare for the next chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome back! It's been awhile, so I decided to post a little flavor of what's to come. This would have been added to the end of the previous chapter, if life hadn't completely diverted my attention to other things.
> 
> Again, the full (actual) next chapter is in progress. For those of you who're here for the plot, it'll be a bit of a doozy.
> 
> This snippet takes place around the same time as the end of chapter 6.

4 AM Saturday October 19th, 2002.

“It’s him,” Eli Damaskinos said to his lawyer with his back turned. His dry voice crackled like kindling. 

“You’re certain?” Karel Kounen asked as he studied the monitors, so incongruous with the old world stone chamber where his Master resided. The rest of it was decorated with a mixture of outdated furniture and ancient, priceless art. The modern computer station was only there for necessity. 

The uniformed workers carrying out the discreet clean sweep of Parizska on screen were as quick and efficient as a well-oiled machine, just how he liked it. With any luck, this whole affair would amount to only a small hiccup in their operations. Luck might have been too much to expect at this point, though.

“Yes… and this is just the beginning.” The Overlord of the Vampire Nation seemed wholly unconcerned with the amount of cover up this was going to take. But then, the fiddly legal matters and PR management were an area in which Karel excelled.

He wasn’t going to argue. If he’d learned anything in his years of service, it was that Eli Damaskinos’s wisdom should be trusted. It certainly seemed like whoever had done this had a personal vendetta, as the blood stores were reported as mostly untampered with.

“They’re analyzing the security camera footage as we speak, we’ll know for certain within a couple of hours, once they piece it all together.”

“There’s still time, then... Bring Nyssa to me,” Eli said without looking at him.

“What are you going to tell her?”

The ancient being didn’t answer right away, so enmeshed was he in reading the dusty tome on the stand in front of him. Karel didn’t know if the answer to this particular problem would be found in the Book of Blood, but then he supposed that it wasn’t part of his job to know those things.

“I will tell her what I need her to know in order to get it taken care of,” Damaskinos said in his slow, thoughtful way. “And if fortune is on our side, she will be the means to accomplishing more than one end.”

Karel relayed the order to his men, and once confirmed, his eyes strayed back to the pensive Overlord.

“Do you think she will be amicable to your plan?” Karel asked.

“She is loyal, my daughter. And a capable warrior. But, of my children, she has always been the most naive. We must tread carefully, I cannot lose her.”

Karel’s radio chirped.

_ “Mr. Kounen, we found something.” _

One of his workers was facing the camera in the hallway in Parizska’s lower level. Behind him another man emerged from the Director’s office. Through the stately wooden doorway, two more workers were mopping blood off the wooden floor and putting soiled sheepskin rugs into large trash bags for incineration. What a fucking mess.

“Tobias…?” Karel asked into the radio, tentative, as someone came from the back room of the office and shook his head.

_ “Ashed, sir.”  _ Karel sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose. It was as he’d expected, with none left alive to witness it but the security cameras. Though this went beyond a simple rampage. This trail of destruction was focused; the warped creature had destroyed the titanium-reinforced security doors just to get  to the blood bank’s former director, though Tobias had nothing to do with Nomak’s experimentation.

_ “And there’s something else.” _

The man on the camera was holding something. It looked like a woman’s purse. Karel glanced over his shoulder, but if Damaskinos had heard or seen, he showed no indication.

“Is there a body?”

_ “No, sir.” _

He might have disregarded a minor detail like that, but minor details were Karel’s territory. 

“Probably just one of the victims of the rampage... bag it and have it sent directly to me.”

_ “Yes, sir.” _

“Is there a problem, Kounen?” Eli asked with as much warning as genuine curiosity. Karel swallowed the lump in his throat, then answered promptly.

“No, my lord. No problem at all.”

Karel passed the beautiful Nyssa on his way out, but knew well better than to let his eyes remain on her for too long. After all, he was just a lowly worm to these otherworldly creatures. 

But, if his Master’s plan came to fruition, he would be a very fat worm indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for your patience and your persistent interest in seeing where this goes. It's been on my mind, but for various reasons I've been unable to focus on it. The next chapter coming soonish (for real this time)


	8. 8:38 PM Saturday (pt. 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nomak and Anna enjoy a much-needed break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's only taken me like five months to update this. And it's ended up being much longer than I originally thought. So, I'll be breaking this into two parts to make it easier to digest.  
> This takes place on the night Blade meets Damaskinos and is told about Nomak.  
> I hope you guys like dialogue and plot!  
> Enjoy.

 

* * *

**8 PM Saturday Night, Old Town Hall, Prague.**

Anna’s dreams were blood. She was drowning in coppery waves, unable to stay afloat. She couldn’t breathe. When she woke up, her arm was thrown over her face. She gasped for breath as soon as she moved it away, and felt the cool body nestled behind her stir.

Jared said her name as she pushed herself up, but she couldn’t remember where she was for a minute and didn’t answer him. Her eyes darted around, taking in the sight of the cave-like Old Town Hall basement until Recent memory resurfaced.

He slid his arm over her upper chest and held her to him until the rush of panic lowered to a dull roar in her ears.

“You’re safe,” he murmured against the side of her head. “ _Jsi v bezpečí_ , Anna. It’s okay.”

Her pulse pounded in her skull and throbbed in her wrist, neck, and side. She held onto his arm and took meditative breaths, in through her nose and out her mouth, until she was calm. The headache subsided. Her heart still beat wildly, but she couldn’t really do anything about it.

“Bad dream,” she said in a croak, rubbing her bleary eyes. She felt dirty and sore, and her mouth was so dry, her tongue kept sticking to the back of her teeth and to the inside of her labret piercing. “Ugh… I need a shower.”

“Don’t hurry,” he said. He was the same temperature as the room, and if she hadn’t felt him breathing against her back, and the subtle muscle movements as he stroked her upper arm, he would have felt like a corpse.

Anna shivered.

“What time is it?” she asked, leaning against him, hoping to warm him with her body heat.

“Night, I think. You started waking up when I did.”

Anna groaned when she realized that meant she’d been sleeping all day. She hadn’t done that in years, and she’d certainly never been so justified.

“I have to get home,” she said. She was thinking of Mariuska, who was probably miffed at the very least, and her comforts, like her bathtub. She needed some sweet, bubbly relaxation more than anything, but she also just wanted to return to some kind of normalcy, surrounded by familiar walls.

She rearranged a couple of the borrowed coats on the pile, guilty when she considered what they’d done on them, when Jared kissed the back of her neck. Goosebumps rose in the immediate area and she sighed.

“You shouldn’t strain yourself,” he said. “Maybe we should wait until you’re feeling better?”

Anna shook her head and reluctantly removed his arm from her chest so she could look at him.

“I just really want to go home,” she said, touching his cheek. “It’s been a… long night. I need my cat, and my own bed.”

“Of course. If you want to go, I’ll help you,” he said.

She was grateful for his offer. Anna thought of the darkness outside and couldn’t imagine having to catch a tram to the subway, then walking home on her own. The shadows would seem even more menacing tonight now that she had a better idea of what could be lurking in them.

Still, It was a waste to be in such a sorry state on a Saturday night, especially now that she had a companion to experience the city with her. She thought on all the things she’d read about, the incredible sights and historical significance of its landmarks, the astronomical clock, the numerous churches and museums; instead of eagerness, however, Anna felt bone weariness. After her night, she wasn’t sure she was capable of processing any new information or excitement.

There was no point in saying anything yet, though. After a hot shower, she might feel differently. But as she gathered her socks and searched for her things, something was missing among the scattered coats and medical waste from her field blood transfusion. She groaned when she realized what it was.

“My purse,” she said. “It’s back at the blood bank, isn’t it?”

Nomak was at a loss, scanning the surrounding area with his eyes.

“I must have left it.” He looked crestfallen.

“It’s okay. Really. All that stuff can be replaced, it’s just…” she trailed off, and absently stroked the deerhide coat laying over her folded legs. “Do you think they’ll find it?”

Nomak was quiet. He found her shirt and gave it to her.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go back home just yet,” he said. Anna was a shocked as anything to feel the tears well up in her eyes.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she said, hiding her face behind her shirt as she pulled it over her head, careful of the bandage on the inside of her wrist. The skin underneath it was tender and itchy, as was the one on her neck, little reminders of Tobias. Nomak left featherlight touches on her bare back as he helped her get her shirt on, and she decided there were better things to focus on.

“Their usual way of dealing with something like this is to cover it up. That means destroying evidence, like records... or bodies.” Jared paused before continuing. “Chances are, they’ve burned it with everything else.”

“Makes sense,” she said with unconcealed bitterness. Nomak seemed distracted. He was looking past her toward the depths of the basement, lit by sparse yellow bulbs suspended above. She followed his eyes, but all she saw was shadow. Then she heard it. Scraping, and low throaty noises. She caught a glimpse of a white face hung heavily with shadow through a wide archway leading into another area, before it disappeared again.

Her pulse rushed.

“Is that…” she started, trying to remember what he’d called the things he’d made.

“My reapers,” he said. She saw both of them again, and this time they remained in sight just beyond the chamber, their hunched forms pacing.

“What are they doing?” she asked, feeling like she needed to whisper. She touched the bandage on her neck. The wound had begun to throb.

“They want to feed. They’re waiting for me.”

“Ah,” Anna said, because she wasn’t sure what else to say.

Nomak ran his hand back over his scalp, staring at them too. Like ghosts they moved without a sound, their heads pale and smooth as skulls to her light-starved eyes.

“They do what I tell them to. It’s strange, but I think they understand me through smell.”

“Like bees,” she supplied.

He shrugged.

“Perhaps.”

She got the distinct impression that he knew almost as little as she did about his creations. The thought was unsettling.

“They look hungry,” she said, unsure whether she pitied them for it.

“They are. They’d starve to death, if I told them to.” His voice was neutral, but his words were cold.

He caught her staring, and with a softer tone, he nodded and told her, “watch.”

He didn’t say a word or make a gesture. At first, Anna was watching him, but then the movements of the approaching creatures grabbed her attention. They were coming into their room. Their eyes were wide and bright, blinking and overly reflective. Like owls in shaded treetops.

She gave Jared an uncertain glance as they passed the nearest arched pillar. There was something in his face that troubled her more than they did, something dark and unreachable. One of them was wearing a guard uniform. That one crept toward the island of coats, and she drew her legs closer to herself.

“Hideous, aren’t they?” His voice was laden with ill-concealed contempt.

At first, she silently agreed with him, but she tried to get past her initial reaction. There was something keen and primitive about them. Their eyes darted furtively, hollow as sharks.

At their most basic, their features were just exaggerated, and worsened versions of Jared’s. They shared the seam of skin on their chins, the deep dark eye sockets, and the apparent hairlessness. Their lips were blackened like rot and cheeks riddled with wormy veins under a sallow surface.  She couldn’t stop her eyes from moving back to him. The resemblance was there, but it was derivative at best. And unlike them, Jared was capable of complex and rational thought.

The reaper in the guard uniform started to sniff the coats, looking for something. She spotted what he was drawn to in the bag of old blood, left unused and coagulating on the floor just past the pile.

“They’re not so bad,” she said, eyeing the other one in a dirty, crumpled business suit. He was swaying back and forth on his haunches, watching them with a string of drool dangling on his bottom lip like a hungry dog.

“You’re far too kind,” Jared said. She shrugged, reaching for the jeans lying in front of her. She didn’t take her eyes off the former security guard as she did. He was watching her, too.

“Aren’t they sort of like your children?”

Jared glanced at her now and dropped his eyes. He answered in a subtle shrug of his naked shoulders.

“In a way, maybe.”

“I mean… it’s kind of cool,” she said.

“You think so?”

“Yeah,” she said, and she meant it. “I’m not so jaded that I can’t appreciate how fascinating they are.”

It seemed like whatever had been in his thoughts was gone now. The reaper in the security guard’s uniform approached her, moving at a crouch on his legs and one hand. The other crept closer too, casting her furtive glances.

“Does he... want to eat me?” she asked, fighting to keep from cringing back.

“No, they know you’re with me.”

For some reason, she thought of the fleshy structures on his back. She probably had his smell all over her. She bit back her fear and picked up the cool bag of blood. The reaper’s eager, predatory eyes watched her and his jaw separated just enough to show a sliver of glistening darkness.

“I think he likes me,” she said with a smile. She gave the pouch a light toss in the reaper’s direction.

It watched the blood land by its clawed hand with a fat plop, but didn’t move. Then, through some silent command, Nomak must have given them delayed permission to feed, because the closer reaper snatched it up and carried it back to the other. They both fell upon it with unrestrained relish.

“What about you?” she asked, watching as they tore messily into the plastic, fussing with each other over it before settling into an uneasy armistice and sharing it. Rotten coppery smell filled the air and dark clumps spilled to the floor but they didn’t seem to mind that it wasn’t fresh.

“I’ll be fine tonight,” he said. After the previous night, she could believe that he wasn’t hungry yet, but she wasn’t sure his assertion was true in every sense of the word. These were his doing, and it seemed like he resented them.

She pushed past her morbid curiosity and stopped staring at them. Now was as good a time as any to put the rest of her clothes on. Her pants were more difficult than her shirt, though. She was stiff all over, as she realized when she attempted to pull her jeans over her ankles. Jared came to her aid.

Having to be assisted into her own skinny pants was awkward enough to be funny, and soon she was muffling her laughter while trying to find the most graceful way to avoid bending at the waist too much. He smirked as he eased them up over her hips, careful of the bandage at her side. She felt warmer already.

A hard, rectangular lump in the back pocket of her jeans told her that somehow, her cigarettes had managed to make it back from the blood bank, for what it was worth. Her coat was nowhere to be seen, though. She covered her arms with Jared’s coat like a blanket to escape the chilly, basement air, and pulled out a cigarette from the pack.

“When do you think it’ll be safe to go back to my place?” she asked as though the matter were inconsequential. She patted her hips for the lighter, but it seemed to be missing. She remembered then that it had been in her purse.

“I’m not sure. It might be safe now, or... it might not be. I don’t think he would have told many people, if anyone, about his interest in you. If he did, they’re either dead or,” he said with a nod toward the reapers.

“I see. I sense there’s a ‘but’ coming.”

“But… there’s no way to be sure,” he said.

The guard was chewing the plastic pouch to shreds to get to the blood residue inside, and the businessman was dragging a long tongue along the stone floor, for any that had spilled. Its end was split, individual tendris quested for the precious substance. Anna thought of Jared’s tongue and felt the blush touching her cheeks. She hoped he didn’t notice.

“I need to take care of Mariuska,” she stated, patting down the coats around her, feeling for something that could have been a lighter in a pocket. “She won’t starve to death if she misses a couple meals at this point, but I still feel bad leaving her alone for so long.”

“Can’t she feed herself?” he asked. Anna laughed and gave up the search for a lighter.

“She’d need to know how to use a can opener, and she’s too lazy to catch mice anymore. A cushy life off the streets has made her spoiled.” She returned the cigarette to the carton and tucked it back into her pocket. She wasn’t even sure why she’d pulled it out in the first place. It had felt more like a habit than an urge.

“I have to go home, eventually,” she said. There was nothing else she could do about it. Even without Mari to consider, everything she owned was in that apartment. That included important documents regarding her certifications, her residency paperwork, and other various and sundry items that would make life very difficult for her if she lost them.

Nomak seemed deep in thought.

“Can you wait until dawn, at least? And stay with me?”

Anna’s heart skipped a beat. All night with him? She could think of a dozen or so ways she’d like to spend another night with him, and only three of them were sexual. It was like a re-do, a chance to know better who he was, this fierce and gentle man with whom she’d already experienced enough excitement for a lifetime. She wanted to be with him, free of any immediate dangers or misunderstandings, or emotional upheaval.

“Well… I might be able to call my neighbor,” she said, trying to remember miss Sofie’s phone number. “If it’s not too late, anyway. She has a key to my apartment and she’s watched Mariuska before. Maybe she can take care of Mari tonight, and I can get the spare from her in the morning. She usually wakes up before dawn anyway.”

“I can walk you home, and there will still be time for me to get out of the daylight,” he said, rising to his feet and going for his boots.

She tried to find a way to say what she was thinking, afraid to ask something of him that he wouldn’t be able to accomodate. She couldn’t explain why, but she wanted him to stay, free of the pressure of time. Even if he slept all day, she didn’t like the thought of him leaving her in the morning, especially now when the night had just begun.

“Where do you stay during the day?” she asked, searching for her black boots in the dark-colored pile of coats, making some effort to minimize any further abuse to them.

“Underground,” he said without further explanation. “Your neighbor must be nice.”

“She’s a cool lady,” Anna said, adjusting to the switch in topic, filing it away for later. She spotted one of her boots by the gauze and rubbing alcohol. “When she first suggested we exchange keys, the reason she gave was so I could put a sheet over her to protect her modesty if she died taking a bath. You’ve got to admire her humor about it.”

Jared laughed quietly, tying up his boots.

“She’s definitely made the last few months more bearable for me,” Anna continued, now looking for the other boot. “Our tea-and-talk sessions are something I’ve enjoyed dearly.”

She spotted the shoe near the reapers, who were cleaning themselves, running their thick tongues over their faces and fingertips. Monstrous cats grooming after a messy meal.

The businessman looked up at her. His bearing changed in an instant from unthinking and instinctive to something resembling intelligence. She knew in his eyes that he recognized her somehow. It looked to her boot and picked it up in a gnarled white hand. Holding it above the floor, the reaper scuttled toward her. A quick glance over her shoulder showed Nomak watching the reaper with almost lazy focus, and she knew that he was in control of it. She watched, too astonished to be nervous.

She didn’t shy away this time. The creature deposited it in front of her and waited. Anna didn’t think, she reached out and touched it atop its smooth scalp. Its lukewarm skin was waxen and strange, and after a moment, it left her and returned to where it had been. She could see the change when Jared released it. The reaper’s receptive stillness dissolved into more animalistic behavior, as it smelled the air to find one of the shredded blood pouches, and crept into the darkness with it. She focused on putting on her other boot, her pulse speeding along.

“Maybe they can come clean my apartment later.”

Jared chuckled.

“They might need practice, first. I’m still learning about them.”

He came to her and offered her a hand when she was properly laced up.

If she listened carefully, she could hear life filtering down through the stone from the square above. The world was wide awake, and after sleeping the day away, so was she.

She shivered, and without waiting to be asked, Jared draped his coat over her shoulders. The oversized coat swallowed her immediately and she felt like a kid when she slid her arms into the large sleeves. It was still warm from her body heat, and she fastened the buttons down the front gratefully.

“This might freak someone out if they found it,” she said, looking over their impromptu sleeping arrangements and Jared’s makeshift triage center. The bag she’d been hooked up to dangled from the ceiling still. It was less than a third full and its contents were as dark and congealed as the other had been. Jared reached overhead and detached it from the pipe from which it had been suspended, and tossed it to his brood without another word. They set upon it.

Anna tried to pick up some of the used gauze, but the discomfort in her side and the lightness in her head came together at that moment and she only made it halfway down before she had to stop and brace herself on her knees.

She felt Nomak’s hand on her back, stabilizing her with its weight.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure there is no sign we were here. You should rest.”

“I feel okay, honestly. It could be worse. I guess... I feel a little bad for not helping after everything you’ve done for me,” she said before realizing how ridiculous that sounded and added, “I just want to thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said with reserved vehemence. “There wasn’t another choice, for me. You were there. I had to go to you.”

Anna dropped her eyes, twisting her fingers as though shredding an invisible piece of paper. She was dumbfounded by how easily he dismissed the significance of what he’d done for her. She would need a lot more time to work through that, herself. It was too soon to really grasp what had happened to her in a matter of days.

He touched her face with his cool and and she looked up to see that a smile ghosted at the corners of his mouth.

“But... if you have to, you can thank me by thinking about yourself for once.”

She blushed.

“Okay, okay,” she said, huffing with mild indignance and feeling better. “I could really use some coffee, if I’m honest.”

“I wanted to take you out last night. We can do that, if you want. I can buy you coffee.”

“That’s right, you owe me a date,” she said with a smirk. “Coffee’s a good start. After a bit of a refresher, first, though. I’m pretty grimy.”

“Good,” he said. He seemed to be glowing as he busied himself picking up a couple of coats. She ran her fingers through her hair, feeling like a bashful idiot.

They agreed to meet by the stairs to the clocktower as the reapers, under his influence, collected trash from the floor. They looked more like trained monkeys to her than former men -or vampires.

She left the low, arch-ceilinged chamber and followed the indicators to the way out.

She’d known of the museum under the Town Hall, but had never managed to get out to see it herself. In the eerie lighting, she peered into rooms with low, arched ceilings and crumbling brick pillars. Manacles and chains were bolted into a stone wall with a plaque beside them. She didn’t particularly want to get close enough to know their history.

In some places, the restoration from the heavy flooding a few months prior was still in progress, with piles of spare stone and wooden planks, and mingled with the scent of wet stone and dust was the lingering smell of mud. Anna had heard about it, but hadn’t seen the devastation in person. Jared had been smart to take her here.

She felt like she’d been hibernating for years and was just starting to wake up.

The door with the lighted ‘východ/EXIT’ sign marked the way out, and she went through it.

The rest of the building was eerie in the semi-darkness, but as she went up the stairs to the upper level, she could hear human activity outside, music, laughter, and loud conversation.

She made her way toward the sound and found herself in a lobby hall. There was an information desk with tour pamphlets in multiple languages, rows of audio tour headphones, and a computer.

She spotted the phone beside the keyboard. According to the wall clock over the desk, it was after 9, which likely meant that Miss Sofie was watching her TV shows, if she hadn’t already fallen asleep.

It didn’t occur to her until she dialed the number that her first instinct had not been to call the police and tell them what had happened at the blood bank.

It made a dark sort of sense. She would have been questioned, and there was no way of knowing to whom she was actually speaking. Many of the people working at Parizka seemed to be human, which meant the vampires’ activities weren’t restricted to the day.

After ringing about eight times, typical from the few times Anna had spoken to her on the phone, Sofie picked up. The old woman was immediately surprised to hear Anna’s voice.

She was about to launch into a long explanation of why she hadn’t come home, and wouldn’t be coming home tonight, but Sofie cut her off.

‘ _Is it a man?_ ’ Sofie asked in soft, raspy Czech. Anna laughed, forgetting the vague falsehoods she’d come up with.

“Yes,” Anna answered, not sure what else to say. “How did you know?”

“I am no fool, _Anuška_ ,” Sofie said in careful English, as though answering Anna’s unspoken thoughts. “First you tell me you meet man. Then you don’t come home. So I think you are dead, or you are _very_ happy. ”

Anna smiled into the receiver and toyed with a pen on the desk.

“Well, I’m definitely alive, and... I am happy.”

“Good. Fat cat stay with me last night when you didn’t come home. She stay until you come back.”

Anna didn’t know what to say, when Sofie spoke again in Czech, slow enough that she could understand.

‘ _Go, be young. Stay out if you want, we’re busy. There are good movies on the TV tonight._ ’

Anna thanked her in multiple languages, her relief jumbling her thoughts. She had, without knowing, given Anna a small and important comfort when she really needed it. One less thing to worry about, and even better knowing that Mari hadn’t spent the last night alone in a dark apartment, either. The old woman would never admit it, but she was actually quite fond of the cat. And she’d have no doubt Mariuska would forget Anna’s neglect while dozing on a warm lap.

The call ended with a promise to come over for tea when she came back.

She located the bathrooms, driven by thirst and what felt like a layer of dirt over her entire body.

She flicked the lightswitch and walked to the sinks as the fluorescent lights flickered on. They hummed and water dripped from one of the three sink faucets. The fierceness and urgency of her thirst took her by surprise at the sound of it, and she rushed to the nearest sink. She turned on the tap and put her face beneath the faucet, letting the cold water splash her cheeks and fill her mouth. She gulped it down, then drank from her cupped hands until her fingers started to feel numb. The water, cool and tasting faintly of iron, soothed her parched throat.

Leaning forward on the countertop to catch her breath, she ran the effects of a blood transfusion through her head, trying to remember if she’d heard about this one. It was completely plausible, enough that there was no need to jump to conclusions about other possible causes. Her body needed time to rest and recover, and to accept the new blood cells. The fact that she felt as well as she did meant she was one of the luckier ones, but she still needed to take it easy.

According to the mirror, she looked healthy enough, if a bit tired. One of her eyes was just a little bloodshot in the corners. Her skin was a bit washed out and green under the unforgiving fluorescent lighting, and her hair needed a good wash. It would have to wait. She turned on the hot water and let it run until the steam fogged up her reflection.

She washed herself like someone stuck in an airport during a long layover. First her hands and face, appreciating how much better that made her feel already. Her hair couldn’t be helped, but there was nothing she could do about that until she had access to a shower. Using wads of paper towels, she cleaned herself, gingerly touching the bandages to see how her injuries felt. Her wrist and neck were tender and sore, as to be expected after being gnawed on for a few hours. The bullet wound above her right hip had been agitated some by her activities early in the morning, but was scabbing over nicely.

She thought about Jared deep kiss, the way he’d enveloped her and filled her, a Cronenbergian fever dream of erotic devourment, more at home on a Giger poster than in her real life. It had been strange and beautiful and frightening. Thinking about it made goosebumps rise on her arms. She’d placed her trust in him after seeing what he was capable of, and he’d given it safe refuge.  She only wished she could do the same for him.

She finished up, dragging her fingers through her hair to get it in some kind of order. Some kohl or lipstick would have been nice, but she’d have to do without. She shut off the lights and exited the bathroom. Jared was waiting for her at the end of the hall. With the way he looked at her, like she was a vision of beauty, it didn’t seem to matter that she thought she looked like a wreck. He stuck his hands into his hoodie pockets and smiled shyly.

“How do you feel?” he asked. One of his reapers was in the stairwell, the other was nowhere to be seen.

“Not so bad, actually,” she admitted, keeping her various and sundry minor discomforts to herself, for now. “Better… and I have to say, I’m excited about this coffee date.”

“Besides that, is there anything you’ve been wanting to do?”

“Yeah… but those can wait... I think I need to keep it low key tonight.”

“Of course,” he said. It might have been a trick of the light, but he seemed a fraction more sober.

“But… I hear there’s a cool clock somewhere near here,” she said with a smile.

“Pražský orloj,” he said, the words rolling off his tongue like ornaments. His genuine eagerness that was impossible not to find endearing. “It’s on this building.”

Anna had known that, but she kept that to herself.

“Is there a back door or something?” she asked, thinking of the crowds she could hear outside.

“This way,” he said, nodding up the stairs. Anna looked up to see a dark figure on the ceiling emerge around the corner of the stairwell. She gasped with a start before her thoughts caught up. It was only the other reaper, and he was clinging upside down, gripping the brickwork with bare feet and clawed hands as though gravity had no bearing on him. His tattered tie dangled toward the floor.

Anna couldn’t help but eye it as she followed Nomak up a few steps. He kept pace with her without indication that she was moving too slow. She was already out of shape, but her stress tension from the day before made muscles ache in places she didn’t normally think about.

“You must be pretty familiar with downtown Prague,” she said, stifling how out of breath she already was the best that she could.

“Yes, I’m from here. I grew up on these streets.”

“Has it changed much?” she panted.

“I don’t know, really. I haven’t had a lot of time to see it.”

“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t have,” she said, feeling mildly embarrassed. He’d been imprisoned for twenty years. And of course he hadn’t seen much of Prague since his escape, he’d been too busy staying low.

“But this part of the city seems to be the same, at least,” he offered.

She glanced back to see the creatures following a few strides behind, both above and below. They were nearly silent, which added to the surreality of the sight of them, and the instinctual recognition from deep inside her that these things truly were predators. Anna stayed a little closer to Nomak, pulling his coat around her, though it didn’t stop the chill from seeping in around her collar.

They stopped, after a few pauses for her to catch her breath, at a third floor landing where a large window opened out on the back roof of the Old Town Hall. Prague lay beyond it, lights twinkling merrily. She peered through it curiously only to see that Nomak had stopped too, and was reaching for the latch.

“What’re you doing?”

“This is how we got in without being seen,” he said, unlatching it and pushing it open. Sounds of life flooded in from the streets below on a frigid breeze.

“Are you serious?” she asked, looking around for any possible witnesses to their crime, but the Old Town Hall was empty.

Her heart lurched when a dark shape slithered on the ceiling above her, and she ducked. It was just the businessman reaper. She’d known he was there, but he’d still taken her by surprise. He climbed outside through the top of the window, bearing uncomfortable resemblance to a cockroach. She moved aside when the other followed from the steps, climbed deftly through the window, and disappeared around the corner.

“Are you afraid of heights?” he asked.

“Not at all,” she said, dubious as to the context that he could ask such a question. “Falling from them is a problem, though. My parents bought me a skydiving ticket for my birthday once because I’d been begging them. I was all for it until we got up there. I refused to jump and stayed on the plane until it landed again. Wasted a couple hundred dollars.”

Jared chuckled.

“I might have done the same as you.” He climbed deftly through the window and crouched facing her on the other side.

“Why’d you ask?” she asked, suspicious.

“Because we’ll have to get down from the roof, and some ways are easier than others.” He reached for her with both hands and waited, patiently.

She took his hands which enveloped hers, and he helped her through the window and onto the roof outside before she really had time to think about his answer. A light breeze carried the chatter and melody of the weekend crowds, and the chill dampness of the October night numbed the tip of her nose. She could see now just how high they were, at least a three storey drop from the sharply slanted red roof with rows of dormer windows to the streets below. She didn’t see any sign of the reapers, though. It seemed he had instructed them to make themselves scarce.

“How did we get up here?” she asked. She thought about how he’d somehow disappeared from her fifth-storey apartment without using the fire escape.

“If it’s alright with you,” he said, pale eyes on her from the shadows of his hood. “I can show you.”

She swallowed, feeling already like she was balancing on the edge of a long drop.

“Okay,” Anna said.

Jared came close, filling her senses with him. She saw his face for only a moment, but there’d definitely been a sly smile on it before he bent down and scooped her up into his arms. Anna held him around his neck, her heart pounding.

“I promise I won’t drop you,” he said quietly.

“Okay,” she answered, unable it seemed to remember any other words. She wondered if he could hear her pulse as loudly as she did, with his sharper senses.

He carried her without effort down the slanted roof, steep enough that it would have been a painstaking hazard for her. She was pressed against his chest, head half buried in her sleeve.

“This is already the weirdest date I’ve ever been on,” she managed to say.

A swift breeze whipped by, carrying the smell of brisk autumn air and a melange of food scents. She shivered and glanced to the side enough to see that they were at the edge of the rooftop. Below, a darker alley ending in an unlit service entrance for the Town Hall lay offset from one of the streets leading to the square.

Dizzied, she closed her eyes.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered. His hands gripped her tightly about her knees and back, and then he dropped off the edge of the roof with her.

There was no gravity except what held her to him for the space of a breath. And, with a gentle tug of inertia on her middle, Nomak absorbed the landing impact with nothing more than the sound of a footfall. She opened her eyes only to see him looking at her in amusement. He eased her down, and there held onto her arm until she felt steady. Above, the rooftop seemed so much farther away. She’d hardly felt it.

Behind him down the short alleyway, narrow dumpsters lined the right wall and on the ground in the center was a sewer access point, its metal cover slightly askew. On the other end, people passed the mouth of the alley, oblivious to them.

“You alright?” he asked. She laughed through the pounding of her heart.

“That was fun. Next time I’ll even keep my eyes open.”

“Maybe you can work back up to skydiving,” Jared said, hiding a smile as he began unwinding the scarf around his neck. “Let’s get you warm.”

She let him put it on her, appreciative of the gesture, and she tucked it into the front of the coat. It smelled like Prague, but being so intimately wrapped about his neck had imparted his scent and she breathed deep. It had an almost calming effect on her to be wearing his things. She knew she was safe.

She watched families and couples, locals and tourists, mingle on the sidewalks. The largest crowd seemed to be gathering in the front.

What had everyone’s focus was the front of the Old Town Hall, which bore the famous astronomical clock over the front entrance. Clumps of people that gathered to take photos of it, and photos of themselves in front of it, even this late. Jared led her around the peripheral of the largest clump of people.

She could understand. It was beautiful, with its gilded numerals and the mixture of fact and mysticism that had gone into its design. It was ornate and aesthetic in the way that ancient scientific instruments tended to be, and as she looked at the masterpiece of engineering and art, she felt with profound clarity just how miniscule her existence was in the grand scheme of things.

Life, it seemed, had continued as normal. She didn’t know what she had expected, that the city would be thrown into chaos? By the laughter and conversation, and general activity, it was plain that nothing had changed. Her whole world had been flipped on its head, but just over there was a couple with their young child, eating gelato on a bench while being serenaded by a street musician on a keyboard. She felt like she was dreaming, like it never happened in the first place.

She held Jared’s arm more tightly.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

She didn’t answer at first, running her eyes over the faces of the people gathered near them, close but somehow unreachable.

“They have no idea,” she said.

“No, they don’t,” Jared said. He knew exactly what she meant. She wasn’t completely alone in this, and that brought her comfort.

“It’s a bit sad, I guess,” she said, trying to keep it light with a little shrug.

“It would only frighten them to know. They can do nothing.” She picked up the understated somberness of his words, and felt the same thing in herself.

Anna was well aware of the limitations of mortality. In some alternate reality, she imagined that another version of herself had died in that alleyway eight months ago. Perhaps there were countless other times she was unaware of in which she’d come a hair’s breadth from death.

She could only guess. The only difference between this Anna and a dead one were the whims of the mercurial and dangerous beings that treated Prague like their own slaughter yard and hunting grounds. Surviving and living in fear all this time hadn’t prevented her from finding herself once more at the mercy of Tobias’s insanity, though.

“You’re probably right… it’s just strange to know something so big, and not be able to say anything, or warn them.”

Jared slid his arm around her shoulders and hugged her close. Above, the low rumble of thunder accompanied the sounds of life in the square. The earthy scent of ozone and imminent rain pulled her attention back to her surroundings. She caught a whiff of coffee on a breeze and breathed deep.

“You look like you could use a warm drink,” he said. To herself, she thought the same thing about him.

With a smile she nodded, and let him lead her away.

* * *

 

**Somewhere beneath the streets...**

The thread of the Master, who walked above, was strong enough that it kept all other voices silent.

Skittering rat feet echoed in the black tunnels that spanned the city. Rodents, in a panic, fled from the invisible teeth that stalked them.

Only one thought, one imperative, drove the twin hunters forward after their prey: _kill the rats._

From his scent-thread, they knew the size, the shape, the smell of the quarry. They knew, too, that sustenance from them only quenched the hunger for a short time, so thin and weak was their blood. But they also knew that there was a nearly endless supply. The burning chasm in their throats that demanded always more would have to be satisfied.

Sometimes words would come to their minds, names without meaning.

Sometimes an awareness of what they’d become surfaced in the shallow clarity that came with the fleeting relief of feeding. Those moments were painful, but brief, and then forgotten.

And nothing compared to the burst of relief the tiny prey offered. It was always disappointing, but the craving and the knowing that this was the only sustenance they were allowed kept them going for the next one, and the next.

They stayed as near him as they could within the complex web of old tunnels under the city. With his thoughts replacing theirs, there was no need to linger on meaningless words and names.

There was no reason to think.

A tram rumbled by on the street above. The hunters barely paused to hear the sound before resuming their game, leaving a trail of tiny furry corpses littering the dirty water behind them.

* * *

 

**9:20PM, Downtown Prague.**

Jared waited in the shadows of a newsstand nearby while Anna stood in line for the food truck. She kept catching herself looking at him, standing against a wall with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, his attention on the activity around them. It wasn’t so dark at night with all the city lights, but Jared managed to find the darkest place on the street. She was used to him by now. But seeing him so close to other people, she wondered if he should be in such a busy place. His features had hollowed since the night before, and she imagined without feeding tonight, it would only worsen with time.

But as pedestrians passed between them, he must not have looked so strange after all. No one seemed to notice him but her, and certainly none with the same affection.

Even with his face in shadow, she somehow saw the features stand out against the surrounding darkness, the prominent cheekbones dipping into concave cheeks that cut a line to his firm chin. The appearance of an intimidating man standing off to the side in darkness might have deterred any curious onlookers, but she couldn’t see him for a threat. Anna knew how gentle he could be, and found the disparity intensely desirable, and distracting.

He caught her staring at him and in her embarrassment, she missed the question of the man at the window of the truck. She was next in line.

She quickly asked for a cup of coffee and a bottle of water, flushing pink, and paid him the money Jared had given her. Money, he’d said, which he’d meant to use for their date. She didn’t ask him where it had come from, but he said it was better with them than its previous owner. While she had no trouble believing him, it had still been a little shock to catch a glimpse of the rolled bills in his pocket.

Anna slipped the bottled water into the pocket of her borrowed overcoat, feeling something small and metal tucked away in there, like a ring. She kept that hand in her pocket, touching it absently as she walked over to him. As she knew it would, his face softened when he saw her come near. He offered her his arm without a word, and she accepted.

Central Prague was a pedestrian-friendly district, with cobblestone streets too narrow for modern vehicles to traverse and shop faces that came nearly to the edge of the curb. Colorful buildings with ornamental moulding at the apex of their roofs almost seemed to lean over the street below. It was beautiful, and with the brightness and the amount of people, she could almost pretend that it wasn’t nighttime at all.

Anna would need to come back and see it when she’d recovered. At the moment, she wasn’t able to give it the amount of appreciation it deserved. Jared scanned the other people as he walked, and she took a drink of her coffee before turning off the larger street and down a smaller, darker one. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she might have felt the tension in his arm relax a little under her hand.

“Is it strange, seeing this again?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It doesn’t seem to have changed... the buildings are as they were before, but some of the signs are new. The people are the same. But the things they have with them...” He lingered on a group of chinese tourists posing in front of a lighted statue while one of them took photos with a small digital camera.

“You missed all of that, didn’t you?” she said, trying to think of what might have changed in the last twenty years. “Digital cameras, mp3 music players, cell phones… well, smaller ones anyway.”

“That seems to be the way of things, but I did know something of the outside world. Maybe even more than before. Through books, mostly.”

The way Jared communicated in ambiguities, carefully but with ease, was almost masterful. He was soft spoken and didn’t waste words, but no one could question his intelligence, especially when he showed how much thought he put into what he did say. It made her realize what a bumbling conversationalist she could be in contrast. She would have to do her best to play the same game for as long as they had possible witnesses.

“How so? Not much of a reader before?”

“I had other priorities,” he said with a shrug.

“How do you mean?”

“My world was smaller, then. I was small-minded. All I wanted was to make a name for myself. I didn’t care about anything that wasn’t right in front of me.”

Anna tried not to stare at him, or give away just how badly she wanted to know more. Jared was a tantalizing mystery, and though she got the sense that he wasn’t accustomed to confiding in anyone, the same loneliness she felt was plain in him was clear in how readily he answered her curiosity, even in vague words.

She found herself on a narrow residential street lined with numbered apartments. The noise of Wenceslas Square was more distant now, and very few traversed that area beside them. It was a quiet, safe neighborhood. Anna found that she was more relaxed away from the crowds, too.

“What do you mean ‘make a name’ for yourself?”

To the side of the street was a green area, a small public park positioned in a break between two row houses. There was a bench, shaded from the streetlights beneath a large tree, and Anna realized she’d been unconsciously steering them toward it. Sitting down did seem appealing.

“I didn’t know who my parents were until much later. I was found as an infant by people like me. A pair. They kept me alive until I was old enough to survive on my own,” he said, stopping before the bench and keeping an eye on their surroundings. Anna slid into the seat to rest and sip her tea, uneasy with the fact that she was already tired from their walk.

“So you literally didn’t have a name,” she said.

Jared nodded.

“It’s rare to be born like I was. And rarer to be abandoned. It made me a target.”

“That’s awful,” Anna said, unable to quell her sympathy. “You couldn’t help what you were.”

Jared shrugged, his face impassive.

“It just was, and is, the way things are. The easiest way to get ahead is by being the strongest, or the biggest, or the smartest. I learned fast how to be all of those things. I gained respect and joined a pack. A gang,” he added for explanation. “And then I led one.”

She tried to picture Jared as a gangster. Going by his age, she imagined him in mid-century greaser garb, but her mental image failed when she tried to imagine him with hair.

“I guess I can’t see that,” she said, but his attention was elsewhere.

“I was a criminal,” he said without pretense. “I dealt mostly with others like me, but no one mattered if I couldn’t profit from it somehow.”

Anna didn’t know what to say. She could understand well enough the slippery downhill path that led from one immoral choice to another, but she doubted her rebellious and self-destructive streak that led her to Vic and the people he called his friends could compare to whatever Jared was alluding to. She didn’t need the details.

“What changed?” she asked tentatively.

“I got what I wanted,” he said. The statement bore a hint of sadness. Anna inched closer on the bench to where he was standing, but she didn’t do anything more than that. She wanted to give him space. Inside, curiosity mingled with trepidation. She didn’t have anything to offer anyway. This was well beyond her own experience.

“My infamy made it to the highest circle. My father heard of the one born without a name. He was looking for his long-lost son. He was, and is, very powerful, and I saw a chance to benefit from his guidance. He brought me into his world but his relation to me was kept secret.”

“Why?”

Nomak looked toward approaching pedestrians in contemplation. An elderly couple, well-dressed and carrying shopping bags, conversed furtively. A moment later, the man said something that made his wife giggle. Nomak continued when they’d passed and were out of earshot.

“I already had a name. I wanted to get by on my own merit. I don’t think he told anyone who I was when they subjected me to their tests, and I doubt he has since I broke free.”

She didn’t know his world, not really, but some injustices transcended innate differences.

“I don’t understand how someone, even someone like him, could do what he did to you.”

“Like I said… that’s the way things are. He had power, he had long life, but he wanted more. All that mattered was his legacy.”

“But you were his son,” she said, lowering her voice more. It occurred to her that she was being intrusive, but Jared gave no indication that he minded. If anything, it seemed he appreciated being able to talk about it, and she was more than happy to listen.

“Being his son was my first mistake. The second was thinking that it mattered. I was a young fool, blinded by the want to be part of something bigger.”

Beneath his even contempt, she sensed real pain. There was no pretending that Anna really understood how he felt. She’d had a happy upbringing as an only child of two liberal parents. She’d been given the freedom to be her own person, free to make mistakes and encouraged to come to them if she needed help. But she knew something about how emotional trauma could shape a person, no matter how far in the past it was.

“He used you,” she said. Jared shrugged.

“I let him. I wanted to be someone to him. And I was. I believe he was very fond of me. More than his other children, even.”

“What happened?” she asked, too curious to be more tactful. “Why’d he turn against you?”

“Scientific progress,” he said without missing a beat. “Genetic research. He wanted to find a way to cure his condition of its weaknesses. All he needed was a test subject who shared his genes. None of his other children were as concerned with proving themselves as I was.”

“You… volunteered?”

“Yes,” he answered.

Anna found this information a little shocking. The foundation of her perception of him trembled in the face of the implication that his current state was due in part to his own choices, that he wasn’t only a victim.

Jared seemed to notice her reaction and dropped his eyes. He made no move to recant what he’d said.

In the distance, a clock chimed ten o’clock. She hadn’t even realized how long they’d been sitting there.

The few passersby paid them no notice, and despite being in the middle of the city, Anna felt very much alone with him. She wasn’t afraid, not in the least. But more disquieting was the errant idea that perhaps Jared wasn’t so innocent in what had happened to him as she had once thought. She forced her judgments aside.

“Why?” she brought herself to ask.

“What they did to me… I brought it on myself in my hunger for acceptance. And the hope that I might be even more powerful than my father if the ‘process’ was a success.”

Anna’s urge was to find something comforting to say to him. Or tell him that she understood. But she didn’t know how.

“Then why are you going after them?” she asked, dropping her voice, determined to keep from sounding accusatory. “If you wanted this?”

Jared sighed and looked up to the clouds overhead, made bright by reflected city lights. Distant thunder menaced.

“I didn’t know what I was agreeing to. By the time I knew, they wouldn’t let me go.”

Anna nodded, chewing on her labret piercing absently. Sensing his unease, she tried to think of something to say, to tell him he didn’t have to share, but nothing came out. Jared spoke first.

“I’m not making excuses. I deserved punishment, just like they’ve earned theirs.”

“You’ve changed, though.” They’d been through too much together already. She’d made mistakes in the past, ignoring her instinct and being in denial of painful truths about people. This was not one of those cases, she was sure of it.

“I’ve grown enough to know how small I used to be. When I had moments of peace, I escaped the only way I could.”

“Books,” she said, seizing on a topic she could relate to. He nodded, and the hint of a smile broke through his gravity.

“Yes. It seems so simple, but it was the one joy they let me have. It's what saved me.”

“What did you read?”

“Everything. Anything,” he said, energized. “As much as I could. It took being in a cell for me to know how big the world was. Everything before became meaningless.”

Anna couldn’t help but smile. The thought that literature had helped transform him from a simple thug to a man capable of more complex reason was as much an endorsement of reading as anything else.

“You grew wiser,” she said, taking a drink of her coffee and thinking about what he’d said.

Jared rubbed a hand over his face wearily, his fingers lingering on his chin.

“I may have found a conscience. But I’m still a monster. I can’t change that.” He gave her a keen look. “I embrace it.”

Goosebumps rose on her arms. She knew he was dangerous. She’d witnessed it firsthand. But in a moment of dire need, Jared had been there for her. What else did she need to know? If it hadn’t been for him, she would still be Tobias’s captive. Perhaps she would have given in to his demands if he hadn’t just forced her to accept them. There was no good way for a situation like that to play out when the most positive outcome was her own death.

She reached out and took Jared’s hand in hers.

“I don’t expect you to be anything but what you are. I just want you to think about what you’re really capable of.” Her heart beat wildly in her chest as she stroked his hand with her thumb.

“You’re like a force of nature. You can be destructive… but that’s not all you are. I can see it. If you can’t then maybe you have some more learning to do.” She was almost stunned with her own boldness, but she stood by it.

Jared touched her face, and when she looked up at him, he bent down and surprised her with a kiss.

Anna folded into him, overcome by the gentle force of his mouth. There was a fierce longing in the way he tasted her, and the way his teeth came just shy of biting her lips. She didn’t catch her breath until the kiss broke.

“You have a big heart, Anna… I thought it was a weakness at first. I was wrong. You’re stronger than I am.”

A dozen half-formed thoughts balanced on the tip of her tongue. She realized her eyes were watering and she ducked her head to wipe them before he could see. They’d come from opposite sides of the same coin, had managed to meet somewhere in the middle, but they still existed separately and saw things from different angles.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. The change in topic caught her off guard, but it gave her a graceful way to get her bearings after such a heavy conversation. Anna felt like she’d stepped into a pocket universe where only she and Nomak existed. One where he was just himself, and not the vengeful creature he was trying to be.

Food was mundane, and mundane was good.

“A little,” she admitted, though the pang in her stomach felt more like indigestion than hunger. She hadn’t eaten in more than a day, she should have been hungry. Something warm to eat would be good for her.

“Can I buy you something?” he asked. It was a sweet offer, but she couldn’t avoid noticing how inhuman his features were. She knew he was hungry, himself, and being around crowds was an unnecessary risk for him and a potentially uncomfortable experience. She didn’t know how to tell him this in a sensitive way.

“Maybe, but only if we can find a quiet place to eat it. I’m not really in the mood for crowds tonight.”

Jared seemed to take this with ill-disguised relief. Now that she’d rested, she took his hand and he led her away from the bench.

* * *

 

**10:35 PM Saturday Night, Seat of the Vampire Nation, Prague.**

Karel scanned the acquisitions forms as he waited in the hallway outside of the Overlord’s chamber, because there was no reason not to get some work done while Eli spoke with his daughter.

The Daywalker was long gone, and Nyssa’s private conversation with her father, no doubt related to the mission taking place the following night, sounded like it was winding down.

As Eli had said, Parizska was a minor setback in the grand scheme of things. In his hand, he held the paperwork for three more clinics willing to sell out, and fifteen new blood bank centers ready to open across Europe, all just waiting for his signature. It would have been much more difficult to handle had that animal decided to take his rampage to the streets. Dead civilians were a touchy subject, and even with the occasional gang fight to blame them on, it was best to keep things contained.

He heard soft footsteps and looked up. Nyssa had only let him hear her as a courtesy, and he responded to the polite gesture with a slight bow.

“If I might have a moment,” Karel began, sliding the forms back into the folder he held tucked beneath his arm.

“I need to prepare myself and my team,” Nyssa said, cutting him off with barely a glance on her way to the elevator.

“Of course,” Karel said, dropping his eyes. “When you do have time, however, there is another matter that may interest you. It’s related to this… situation. A possible loose end, as it were.”

Nyssa paused at the open door but didn’t even give him the full turn of her head.

“Loose ends won’t be a problem once we finish this,” she said. Sensing that this was the end of the discussion, Karel nodded and she departed. He would never voice it, but he wasn’t as convinced as she was that this would be a simple matter. She was a capable warrior, but she wasn’t a strategist.

Even with the Daywalker on their side for this, Nomak had proven himself a dangerous foe to the Masters. Not to mention, the young woman he was caught on camera fleeing with was beginning to feel more significant than first thought. Her existence, and the circumstances that led the mutant to take her with him, posed questions that might have been better left unanswered.

Karel would only rest easy when this entire unpleasant business was behind them. And if not, well, his information regarding Nomak’s behavior, could come just in time. Kounen, the sniveling lawyer, might come out ahead of the game for once, instead of merely keeping pace.

This could be what finally made the aged Overlord fulfill his promise and give Karel the immortality he craved.

Or, it was nothing but a snack Nomak had saved for later.

Karel knew how to be patient. He’d wait for the perfect time to act. Until then, well, there were more papers that needed signing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and if you've been following this story, thank you for your patience. Part 2 will be posted forthwith.


	9. 10:35 PM Saturday (pt. 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna and Jared learn more about one another. But things may not be as peaceful as they seem...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, part 2.

* * *

**10:35 PM Saturday Night, Downtown Prague.**

They walked in pleasant silence, their routes kept them away from the populated avenues. Anna found herself reluctant to stop touching Jared somehow or other, a sentiment which he returned. He stayed at her side as she followed the smells of cooking street food, and with him in mind, she avoided passing too close to anyone else.

As before, he stood alone while she waited in line for food, keeping out of any light that might highlight the paleness of his skin, or show its contrast with the shadows under his eyes. Anna purchased a styrofoam cup of goulash and walked with him down the steps to the paved walkways beside the shore of the Vltava.

Her mood, having already lightened some from their heavy conversations, was improved further when she began to eat. She groaned appreciatively around a mouthful of potato and beef, and she caught Jared’s subtle smile before his face disappeared once more behind the side of his grey hood. It was just street food, but it was the best thing she felt like she’d ever tasted. Anna didn’t realize how hungry she’d really been until she started eating. It was reassuring, somehow.

The wide cobblestone avenue was bordered on one side by a tall stone wall that led up to street level, with docked commercial boats on the other. It was close enough to the central downtown area that the hum of life reached them, but the lighting was sparse. They’d chose to go down there for the solitude it offered. Any others with the same idea in mind were well away from them.

Anna found a place at the edge of the river, by the massive support struts under the Manes Bridge, and sat down, her legs dangling four feet over the water. Jared seated himself beside her for a moment, his legs hanging like hers.

“I’ve told you more than I’ve ever told anyone,” he said after a little while. Anna looked at him and tried to summon an expression of gravity mid-chew, but was having difficulty.

“Are you okay with that?” she managed to say around her bite.

“Yes,” he answered, gazing across the river. “Now it’s my turn to ask you something.”

Anna swallowed hard around an uncomfortably large mouthful and steeled herself for equally probing questions. It was only fair.

“Okay,” she said, wiping her mouth on her sleeve before remembering that she was in Jared’s coat.

“What is it like, where you came from?”

Anna’s mild tension crumbled and she breathed a sigh of relief. He’d thrown her a softball, and Jared’s eyes shone merrily in the indirect lights lining the bridge above, and she suspected he knew what she’d been expecting.

“It’s colder in Minnesota,” she said, snuggling down in his coat and scarf. It was only her nose and the tip of her ear, exposed by the undercut on that side, that felt chilled. “The winters are long and dark, which can be a problem if you don’t have anything to do. I guess it’d be pretty nice if you’re a-” she stopped herself from saying what had almost spilled off the tip of her tongue. Her eyes darted conspiratorially around, though there were no eavesdroppers in sight. “Night owl,” she finally decided on.

Jared laughed.

“That sounds nice.”

“Yeah. You’d probably like it. Of course, it’s different in the Summer.”

She inwardly winced over her bland and unnecessary statement.

“There’s more sun?” Jared offered, giving her a playful smirk

“You are correct. Thrilling, I know.”

“Tell me more.”

Anna blushed at his sincerity. She was sitting next to him in public, eating soup out of a styrofoam cup, and she was having a normal conversation with him. It was utterly bizarre.

“What do you want to know?”

”Why did you move to Prague?” he asked.

That one gave her pause. It was a simple question, and it should have had a simple answer. Wanderlust, or coming because of an overseas travel scholarship, or even that she was having a quarter-life-crisis. Those were fine enough answers for most other people, but Anna didn’t know how to package the last few years of her life into a concise, easily digestible statement.

“My family traveled a lot, just the three of us,” she said, setting her thoughts on something pleasant. Jared listened in attentive silence. “My dad’s work took him to other countries sometimes, so he’d bring me and my mom along with him for family trips. He’d go for his work stuff, but when he was done, we’d rent a car and see another part of the world together. It was really special.”

“Did you come to Czechia?” he asked.

“When I was seventeen, we took about two days and drove from Warsaw to Brussels in a camper van, and we passed through. There was a lot to see in a short amount of time, though, and I didn’t really get a chance to drink it all in. We drove through Prague at night. And I just… remember being transfixed by it. The countryside is lovely too, but something about this city just stayed with me.”

Anna looked over the dark river to the glowing cityscape on the opposite shore. Cars rumbled by on the bridge overhead, and she wondered if their passengers were as enchanted as she was by the sight of it.

“I just decided if I’m going to move anywhere, why not Prague?”

She took a moment to finish her goulash. They had all night and there was no need to rush.

“It was a good memory,” he said.

“Yeah. It was a happy time in my life. But I also knew coming here would be something completely new to me. I was alone, which gave me the space I thought I needed to figure things out.”

A cool wind blew down the wide path, sending leaves and small bits of paper rustling along the cobblestone. Anna took a deep breath and let herself feel the invigorating sting of cold on her cheeks and the tip of her nose. It smelled like leaves, wet stone, dirt. The scent of perfume carried from somewhere else.

“You said you needed to get away, before,” he said. Anna flushed. She’d forgotten that she told him that.

“Yeah… I had a bit of a rough time after my mom passed. I just needed to get out of Minneapolis for a while.”

“What about your father?” he asked.

Anna looked down at her empty cup and shrugged. As much as she liked to be an open book, there were still some things that weren’t so easy to discuss.

“You don’t need to answer,” he said, touching her leg with a cool palm. Anna sighed and held his hand, both to reassure him and to find resolve in herself.

“No, it’s okay. It’s just hard to explain without some context, I guess. It’s kind of a long story.”

Nomak shifted and made a space for her when she leaned against him, raising his arm so she could fit under it.

“We have plenty of time,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head that sent a shiver down the back of her neck.

“Maybe an easier one first?” she suggested.

“Okay…” he thought for a moment. “What do you like to do for fun?”

Anna laughed at the simplicity of it.

“Not much lately, but before, I liked dancing. And music. My friends and I were big into the Minneapolis nightlife. It was a lot of fun dressing up and going to parties, or clubs, when we had time off. I should show you photos sometime. I’ve really toned down my look since then.”

“Now I’m curious,” he said, and Anna laughed, blushing.

“I also used to make art. Paint, and charcoals. ”

“Really?” Jared asked, this time with genuine interest.

“Yeah. When I was a kid, I wanted to be either an artist or a doctor. I leaned toward the art as I got older. I got pretty good, too. I took classes and was looking into art schools. When my mom got sick, though, I sort of gave it up. It didn’t seem so important anymore.”

Anna thought about her cigarettes, remembered that she didn’t have a lighter, and resigned herself to fidgeting with her nails instead.

“So I decided to go into nursing.”

“I’m not surprised. You seem well-suited to helping others.”

Anna smiled and shrugged, scraping off a lingering fleck of black nail polish that had survived her prior fidgeting.

“I guess. I get it from my mom, probably. She was an occupational therapist. It was so rewarding to her.”

“Still, it’s sad to give up on a dream,” he said, quietly.

Anna brushed aside the slight pang of regret from thinking about what she’d lost when she’d stopped painting. She’d tried to pick it up again before moving, but she’d never been able to actually put anything on paper, and her attempts had ended up in the trash.

“Eh… I stick with my choice, but I think I made it for the wrong reasons. I guess I thought I could, if not help her, at least know better what she was going through. It was partly selfish, though, I see that now. I thought it would make me feel better, too. Cancer… is this big, unquantifiable thing. If I could understand it, it might not seem so scary. She just kept getting sicker, though…” Anna paused for a moment to regain her bearings. She’d spoken about it before, but somehow this time was different. Nomak’s sincere, quiet attentiveness lacked the reductive pity she was used to getting from others.

He held her silently without judgment or comment as she figured out how to continue.

“When she died, I dropped out. I got counseling, which was good. Then I was inspired to try a stint volunteering as a sponsor for an addiction support group. My schooling made it easier, and at the time it seemed like a good idea to focus my pain to try and help other people.”

“That explains your feelings about drugs,” Nomak said. Anna remembered thinking he was a junkie and felt a little guilty about it. It was inconsequential now, and almost funny.

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

Nomak shrugged.

“You weren’t so wrong. I need it to live, but it feels… very good to drink.”

Anna was reminded of Tobias, and how nearly sexual his consumption of her blood had seemed. How wild Nomak had become while feeding on Tobias. It was almost euphoric to eat when she was hungry, but she realized she couldn’t really equate the two. She hoped she would never know what it felt like, either.

“I admit, my judgment is sometimes off, even though I’m trying to be better about it. I made some mistakes, and some bad choices that led to me quitting my work at the group.”

“What happened?”

Somewhere, church bells chimed 11 o’clock. It was still early, but Anna felt like time was getting away from her. She searched for the best way to explain to him something she was still dealing with.

“I got involved with some toxic people. Stopped caring about things that used to matter…” She sighed, her chest tight with regret. “You asked me about my dad. After Mom died, he and I still had each other. But I think we relied too much on each other to fill the space she left. It was stifling. I said, and did, some things that I regret. Even with his infinite forgiveness, I know it hurt him. By the time I realized how much I’d changed, and how poisonous my relationships were, things with Dad weren’t the same.”

She breathed in Nomak’s scent from the scarf and ventured to rest her head on his chest. He pulled her closer.

“You came here to get away from him?”

“No… I mean, kind of, I guess. But it wasn’t like that. I couldn’t move past my mistakes, even when I cut the damaging influences out of my life. It was his suggestion that I try to do some self-searching. It wasn’t a choice made in anger.”

She remembered that conversation, and how cathartic it had been for both of them. It was probably the first time in the couple of years since her mother’s passing that she and her dad had really been honest with one another.

“Not an easy decision,” he said.

“We needed some time apart. It was my choice to move out and leave the country. He was sad about it. But as always, he was supportive and helped me figure it out. He’s a good man, my Dad. He's always given me the space I needed, for better or worse.”

Jared listened, and she caught him glancing at her as she spoke, his face neutral as he picked at the sleeve of his hoodie.

“In some ways, I think we’ve gotten closer since I moved. I talk to him more now than I ever did back then. And… I mean, unpleasant occurrences notwithstanding, I think I’ve been doing okay. I found a job helping people. Got a cat. Now I just need a new job. And maybe some new hobbies.”

“What about your art?”

Anna plucked at a loose thread on his pants absently and shrugged.

“I left it behind. All my supplies are back in a closet in Minneapolis,” she said, trying to keep her tone light. “It’s not really my thing anymore, anyway.”

Nomak made a small sound of acknowledgment, and Anna was self-conscious. She felt like she’d been talking far too much, but he’d listened to her every word. Jared, whose own concerns went beyond her mundane self-reflections, was an excellent listener, and she appreciated him for it.

“So… now I’ve given you the full monologue,” she joked.

“That makes us even,” he said, stroking her arm. His breath was cool on her scalp and she stroked the top of his thigh contentedly.

“Some first date, huh?” she said with a smirk.

“I wouldn’t know. This is my first… first date. Is it not normal?”

Anna chuckled.

“Openly discussing baggage is definitely more of a fifth date kind of thing,” she said with a grin. “But I guess this was never meant to be a normal relationship.”

Nomak tensed when she said that, and it took Anna a moment to figure out what he was reacting to.

Then she realized. She’d called it a ‘relationship,’ a word that carried with it unintentional baggage. Heat flooded her face and her heart stuttered a couple of beats, and for a second, Anna felt like she’d missed a bottom step.

“Anna,” Jared said, his voice thick. “I-”

“Kidding,” she said, scrambling for recovery before she felt any stupider, lovestruck and short-sighted as she must have sounded to him. Anna sat up, awkward with leaning against him. “It’s fine, Nomak. I’m having a good time. Aren’t you?”

She could see Nomak’s teeth through his parted lips. His eyes searched her face, pupils narrowed in light corneas. Then he looked across the river and nodded.

“I just want you to be happy.”

Anna ran her fingers through her hair, tousling it loosely. She understood well enough. Jared pitied her. How could he not? She was just a human who’d bumbled her way into a war between two forces she couldn’t comprehend. Next to the life he’d lived, her own seemed so paltry and insignificant. She wouldn’t let it bother her, though. She was very aware that his goals were greater than her, he’d tried to tell her, and she had to make peace with that.

“I am happy,” she said, recalling her conversation with Miss Sofie a couple hours ago. “Just… a bit tired is all.”

She wasn’t lying. Talking to him had distracted her from her various discomforts long enough not to notice them, but the soreness throughout her body was making itself known again. Her shoulder ached, perhaps from when Tobias had thrown her to the floor, and her various wounds were still itchy. She felt physically tired, but mentally and emotionally wired. She thought again of her bed with longing.

“We should find a warm place where you can rest,” he said.

Anna grabbed her soup cup and started to push herself to her feet. Nomak hurried to help her, but she dismissed his offer with a light gesture.

For an instant, she felt resentful of his concern.

“No, no… I just need to walk around a bit,” she said.

“Alright,” he said. He seemed a bit lost as he glanced across the bridge, silent for a moment. Anna brushed the dirt off her and tossed the cup into a nearby trash can

When he turned back toward her, his face had softened.

“Would you like to see something beautiful?” he asked.

He was so eager to please her, so well-meaning and shameless in his concern for her, it was hard not to find it endearing. Whatever his feelings, his intentions toward her were pure.

“I would love to,” Anna said, and she genuinely meant it.

The brief stumble was forgotten, it seemed.

Nomak led the way to the stairs leading back to street level, and though he didn’t make a show of it, she could tell that he was walking very slowly so that she didn’t wear herself out keeping up. She appreciated it too much to be irritated.

Their stroll took them across the Manes Bridge to the Western banks of the Vltava, dodging drunk and exuberant groups of people on their way to or from some party venue or other. Anna watched them pass, silently wishing them a good night and a morning without hangovers. Jared wasn’t much for conversation, but then neither was she, for once. He’d given her a lot to think about and muse over, and at least on her part, there was an unspoken understanding that they were on the same page.

She made herself appreciate the sights, and there were many. The street performers were out en force along the riverside, and cafes and bars spilled fragmented conversation into the chilly night air. Smells of cooking food and coffee didn’t entice her as much as they had earlier, and she blamed the potentially questionable nature of street food for her unhappy stomach.

This district was an upper class one, consisting of boutique shops and upscale restaurants. She caught a glimpse of the prices of certain things and rested comfortably knowing she may never have come to this part of town, even if she hadn’t been too scared to leave her apartment all this time. So many things were geared toward tourists, which meant they were well out of her income bracket. But it was lovely to finally see it firsthand.

The streets were busier, but Nomak’s smooth avoidance of well-lit areas and clumps of people was artful. She needn’t have worried about his ability to blend in, even in his current state. She wondered if this skill had been gained through his life as a criminal or his time as a vampire.

Anna didn’t have the best sense of direction, though, and soon she was a bit lost.

“Where are we going?” she finally asked. To her surprise, Nomak glanced over his shoulder with the most mischievous smirk on his face. He was so handsome when he smiled, and she couldn’t remember exactly why she’d been bothered earlier.

“To test your fear of heights. If you’re up for it.”

Anna smirked, picking up the lighthearted challenge in his words, and the underlying meaning behind them. While she still felt that a healthy dose of caution was necessary, she wanted to let go of her worries for the night. She was genuinely enjoying herself, and it didn’t bother her so much anymore that she was downtown enjoying the sights instead of sitting at home alone in her apartment as she would be doing otherwise.

“What’d you have in mind?”

“I’ll show you,” he answered, elusive as ever.

* * *

**Somewhere under the streets of Prague…**

The Master’s scent-voice grew faint sometime after he passed over water. There were no tunnels that crossed the flowing current, and with no easy way to follow, they hesitated long enough to lose him.

His will remained ingrained, but their own thoughts began to form, granting some distant, caged understanding of what they once were, and what they’d become. It was a fleeting pain, replaced only by the hunger, and the command, _kill the rats._

They were content to continue as they had. Already, though, they had eliminated much of the given prey. The thin blood curdled in their stomachs, yet they returned to the cold, soggy husks to gnaw out any residual nourishment.

Uneasy, they paced, snarled and snapped at one another. They were packmates, but the endless hunger made them irritable. Master wouldn’t let them die. He needed them to serve and obey him. He would return, and then he would give them a feast as he had before. But until then, they could only wait, and search for more morsels.

A sound came from one of the branching tunnels ahead. It was larger than a rat, though they didn’t know what it was. They were curious, and hunger made their senses sharp. They caught traces of blood on the dank sewer air and moved to seek it out, digits gripping the imperfections in the arched brick walls and ceiling with silent ease.

The nearer to the source they came, the richer the smell. This was not rat blood they smelled. It was the blood of a predator.

Their preferred prey.

Other smells, of mortal sweat and fear, mingled with the scent of the blood drinker. By the sounds of it, it was feeding. The soft echoes of gluttony and whimpering, helpless terror filled the hunters with vigor. Their throats throbbed and ached, and though the Master’s voice was in their heads, saying to kill the rats, it was drowned out by the promise of hot, rich blood, filling the surrounding space with the enticement of true satiation.

Powerful eyes collected even the smallest iota of light until they could see a hunched shape on the ledge beside the sewer channel.

They hung back, at first. After all, Master didn’t tell them what to do if they encountered such a desirable meal. But the longer they waited, the more excruciating the sensation in their chests became, the building burn of hunger tightening like a fist around their hearts.

The predator was so busy glutting itself, it didn’t see or hear them until it was too late. They disregarded its prey, which still clung to life, because it didn’t have the scent of a blood-slave. That they knew for certain. No mortals could be fed upon, ever, except for the blood-slaves, and to disobey would surely mean death. But the blood drinker itself, fat on its meal, was too tempting to pass.

The sounds of its screams and the desperate thrashing of its struggles only drove them into greater frenzy. The pleasure was longer lasting, far more than the morsels they’d been allowed.

The coppery flow filled them and the vampire’s strength waned until it was gone, leaving an empty body behind.

The feeding brought relief. Satiated, the reapers began to clean every lingering trace of their meal from themselves so as not to waste a single drop. The mortal, who’d been too far gone to escape, died in the darkness beside the remains of its killer, and only then did the reapers move to see what little they could extract from it. It was cold, like the rotten bags they’d been fed in the morning, but fresher.

Satiated, the hunters made a game of fighting over pieces of the dead mortal under the guise of searching for whatever blood was left. When that lost its novelty, they turned to each other, scrapping and fighting without real intent behind it.

Before long, the ache for more blood made them restless. They thought of the Master again with a pang of fear for what they had done. They needed to find him again. He would understand.

They left that part of the tunnel behind and followed the faint trail of scent he’d left in his wake. Their path took them to open air, though they remained hidden in darkness beneath a structure that crossed the wide water.

His scent was stronger, now, and they followed it underneath the structure, clinging invisible behind thick metal supports, shadows within shadows, as the water rushed by beneath them. On the other side, they crawled into a dark hole in the ground before any eyes could see them. The closer proximity to their Master brought a new relief. His voice, as strong as ever, returned. _Stay hidden. Kill the rats._

They did this, forgetting already how unsatisfying the small creatures were. Their quick movements and their tiny sparks of fear provided enough entertainment and distraction.

They didn’t think anything of it when a third hunter joined the pair. Their pack was growing, and when they rejoined the Master, they would feast without end.

* * *

**11:59 PM, St. Vitus Cathedral, Central Prague.**

Anna was dazzled. Her heart had just enough time to slow down to something closer to normal when the sight of Prague spreading, unfolded ,before her sent it skipping forward again like a stone on water.

Jared, in his wicked sense of humor, had chosen to test her fear of heights on the tallest building in the district, St. Vitus Cathedral. That first glimpse of the city from the observation floor near the top of the tower made her feel like she’d left her body. Her burning arms, aching for how hard she’d held onto Nomak, now hung in a loose grip to the bars over the tower’s view windows, their discomfort forgotten.

The city was an array of luminous jewels on black velvet, a field of scattered embers stretching into the darkness to the horizon. Wind whipped through the open walls and she shivered, her fingers nearly numb on the black iron bars, but she couldn’t take them down, or even look away. Thunder crackled above, nearer now, but the humid cold had yet to give way to actual rain.

He stood off to the side, giving her a chance to take it in. He was concerned with her soreness; after all, he’d told her he could support her weight, but she’d clung to him like a rucksack full of potatoes all the same.

As he’d climbed, he’d kept an unwavering arm behind him to hold her while the other gripped sheer stone as deftly as if he’d been crawling over level ground. She hadn’t been able to shed her instinctive desire not to fall as the earth stretched farther below them, even if she'd truly believed him when he said he wouldn’t let her fall.

It was worth it, even if she could feel her bite wounds throbbing under the deerhide sleeve, irritated from the friction her stress-hold had generated. She could have come to see this during the day like any other tourist, though the thought of traversing the 238 steps to the top was far more daunting than being carried, now that she was up here, but she never would have been given this view free of other people.

They were alone up here, at the top of the world, and the rare solitude was as breathtaking as the scenery.

When she felt she could move her legs again without using the walls for balance, she walked the perimeter, observing the city from every angle. It was endless and timeless. She heard Nomak come up behind her as she watched tiny boat lights move along the dark ribbon of the Vltava.

“This is… incredible,” she said, though the word fell short of the real awe she felt to see it from this far above. Close enough to see the buildings and vehicles and people, but far enough to feel separate from it.

“Yes,” he said, his voice quiet. “I’d hoped you’d think so.”

Anna took a deep breath, and when she turned toward Nomak, he wasn’t looking at the view at all, but at her.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, without breaking her stare. “For this. For tonight. I’ll never forget it.”

Nomak glanced down as though shy.

“I should thank you,” he said, scuffing his boot on the stone floor. “I’ve spent my life here. But everything feels new with you.”

Anna chewed on the inside of her cheek as she worked up the courage to reach for him and bring him toward her. Jared complied without resistance and they stood side by side, watching the glittering cityscape below in comfortable silence.

She didn’t know what time it was when they decided to leave, but at some point, the chilly air became too much for her, even bundled in his oversized coat and scarf, and he had no body heat to offer her.

Coming down from the tower was easier. As brave as she liked to think she was, she kept her eyes closed when Jared picked her up. It didn’t seem to matter that the Great South Tower of the cathedral was more than three times the height of the Old Town Hall clock tower, Jared had no difficulty hanging onto the side of the building and helping her out the open window. He held onto her from the front this time as he eased down, and when she ventured a peek, he was smiling at her.

He jumped the remaining twenty feet or so, cushioning the landing so that she barely felt it, and when her feet touched the stone floor of the dark courtyard, she pulled him close with her arms still wrapped about his neck.

His mouth was cold, but it didn’t bother her. When he pushed her against the stone wall at the base of the tower, she started to feel warmer anyway. Jared’s tongue snaked into her mouth, too long to be mistaken for a human’s, and she considered that she may not ever be satisfied with an ordinary man again.

To any passing by, they were just any other couple, stealing a moment of passion in the privacy of the shadows.

As they made their way back toward the river, she learned that it was after one AM. So early, yet she couldn’t deny that the previous night was catching up to her. She was more grateful this time when Nomak suggested they find somewhere warm and quiet to rest. She would have liked her own bed, but the trains were no longer running, and wouldn’t be running again until 4:45AM.

“Where have you been sleeping?” she ventured to ask again as they made their gradual way to the nearest metro station. She felt brave enough, hoping he would feel more forthcoming. It was something that had been nagging at her since the first night they met, and something he seemed reluctant to reveal.

Nomak gave her a quick, searching glance, and she felt the stirrings of guilt for being so nosy. He’d been so open with her, why not let him have this?

“There’s a service tunnel underground not far from here. It was blocked off after the flooding. I’ve been staying there,” he answered, his voice strangely flat. He didn’t offer any more detail, and Anna found herself wondering what, if anything, he had to hide anymore.

“Will you show me?” she asked with a twinge of shame because she knew he wouldn’t deny her. “I just… I want to know.”

Jared’s head bowed, and Anna bumped him with her elbow gently, smiling, trying to get him to relax a little. They passed a bar with rowdy patrons lingering outside and smoking, and Jared eyed them warily. In the back of her mind, she wondered if any of them were vampires, and if he’d tell her if so.

“It’s okay, I mean… I won’t judge. I told you how I lose sleep worrying about that kind of thing. I feel better now, knowing that you can take care of yourself. But that first night… it would have been reassuring to know.”

He shrugged.

“It’s nothing worth sharing.”

Anna fidgeted with her stretched ear plug, the conflict between her curiosity and her consideration warring in her chest.

“I just... want to know everything about you,” she said.

Jared was quiet for a moment as they walked.

“Okay,” he said finally. Anna pushed aside her uneasiness. It couldn’t have been as bad as he seemed to think.

When they reached the stairs leading down to the metro station, Anna found herself following him, rather than walking alongside him. The platform was empty except for them, but he seemed to be headed beyond it. Jared led her to the far end where the south metro tunnel stretched into darkness. She didn’t see it at first, but there was a narrow ledge between the tunnel wall and the tracks. Jared stepped onto it with the ease of practice.

He didn’t speak to her, though he kept a hand on her shoulder to help her with her footing.

It was eerie, and the farther away they got from the platform, the darker it became until Anna could barely see the ledge in front of her in between the sparse, dim service lights. Drafts whistled down the tunnel, lightly buffeting her from both sides.

They must have walked a quarter mile before the ledge expanded into a niche. A barred door chained shut with a warning sign, was set deeply into the concrete wall beneath a broken light. The padlock on the chain was only loosely there, and Jared opened it and parted the chains on the door, holding it for her. After they were both on the other side, he hung the padlock back on the chain without locking it.

There were no lights in the service access tunnel, and she could smell the mildew and mold from moisture that had never dried. Jared’s dark grey hoodie was barely visible, a ghost in the darkness, and she stayed as close to him as she could without tripping over his feet. His silence was more troubling than anything, and with each growing second, Anna felt worse about making him show her.

Before long, however, they came upon a break in the wall. Brick from the wall had collapsed, leaving an opening large enough for her to climb through, and she did so with Jared’s help. It was pitch black, but it sounded close, and she realized they’d reached his place.

There was a click, and the area flooded with light from a bulb on a chain hanging in the center.

Anna fell into a stunned silence.

It was a hole. A dingy, concrete cavity only slightly larger than her bathroom. A burned out fusebox was on the back wall, bleeding trails of rust toward the floor, which was hidden beneath crumpled piles of newspaper, some yellowed with age, brown paper wrapping of some kind, and plastic sheeting that seemed to have come from a construction site. Nomak had made a nest in the center, and she was instantly reminded of the pile of borrowed coats.

Nomak still stood beneath the hanging light, watching her with an unreadable blankness on his shadowed face. Anna’s grew hot with shame.

She took a deep breath. It was dry in here and somehow warmer than the tunnel outside. And despite the appearance of refuse and trash, she didn’t smell garbage or rotting things. It was, for lack of a better word, a clean sort of clutter. It was clear that this refuge had been chosen in haste, but she did spy a couple of personal touches that made it his.

She acted unperturbed as she stepped carefully over the paper and collapsed cardboard boxes when she spied a book set off to the side with a torn cover. By the look of it, he’d fished it out of the trash. She crouched down and picked it up, noticing how dog-eared the pages were. It was a copy of _The Lovely Bones_ , by Alice Sebold. She’d never read it, but she’d heard it was good, and by the look of it, Jared had read it multiple times.

“I didn’t want you to see this,” he said in a soft, gritty voice. Her guilt rose to a crescendo as she carefully put the book back down where she’d found it. She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said, plucking at her labret piercing with her teeth compulsively. “I shouldn’t have made you show me.”

Jared came over to her, footsteps rattling paper and plastic. He bent down and picked up the book and she rose to stand next to him, her empty fingers fidgeting against one another.

“You don’t belong here,” he said, looking down at the book. Anna swallowed the lump in her throat, shame twisting in her stomach.

“It’s not that bad,” she said, and though she meant it, it sounded false to her ears. When Jared looked at her again, the plain sadness on his face made her gut want to cave in on itself.

“It’s a tomb,” he said, tossing the book aside and looking at the dingy, stained walls. He was embarrassed, she realized, and she’d taken advantage of his willingness to do what she wanted to sate her curiosity.

“It’s not you,” she said.

“It is. You said you accepted me for what I am. Accept it, then.”

“I do,” she said, her brow tightening with frustration. “I don’t care about this, Jared. If this is how you want to live, that’s fine. But it almost feels like you’re trying to punish yourself. That’s the problem.”

Jared didn’t answer, but his shoved his hands deep into his hoodie pockets, pulling it down tight around his shoulders so that the short spines on his upper back stood out beneath the fabric. His brow was troubled and Anna couldn’t stand to see it that way.

She stepped up to him, and when he didn’t move away, she touched his cheek and made him look her in the eye.

“Come home with me,” she said, before adding, “please.”

Jared avoided her eyes, but now that she’d said it aloud, she wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

“I can cover the windows. I won’t bother you.”

“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not safe, as long as they’re looking for me.”

Anna gritted her teeth, looking around.

“Look,” she said, fishing his hands out of his pockets. He didn’t resist as she held them, searching for her words. “I understand you have bigger things to deal with besides me. Serious things. Dangerous things. I know there are things you need to confront, and I can’t stop you. But you seemed so… happy there. What’s wrong with a little bit of comfort? Especially if you’re dealing with life-and-death matters. Quit punishing yourself and let yourself live. At least… for a little while.”

Nomak didn’t speak, but she saw his jaw tensing beneath downcast eyes. His fingers threaded with hers, and she could almost see the conflict inside of him. She felt guilty for being the cause of it, but not enough to take it all back. She wanted him out of this place. She wanted what time he had left to be a good time.

“I’m safer with you than without you,” she said. She was doing it again, taking advantage of his kindness, but this time she didn’t feel bad about it in the least. He said she didn’t belong here, but as far as she was concerned, neither did he.

She almost didn’t hear him when he answered, “okay.”

But her heart leaped all the same at the subtle upturn of his mouth in an almost hidden smile.

“Good,” she made herself say, fighting down the triumph. “It’s enough that you have this burden to bear without you adding onto it.”

Nomak didn’t answer that, but she couldn’t help but notice that the tension in the set of his shoulders had relaxed a little.

Without so much as a word, Nomak turned off the light, casting them back into darkness. His hands slipped around her waist and he hugged her against him, and for a moment, they just breathed against each other’s necks, embraced with the mutual need for the physical contact.

They made their way out, with his help, and walked the careful path back to the fluorescent glow of the metro platform.

They picked a bench beside a heater, and without being asked, Nomak made a space for her between him and the heater. She sat nestled against his side, too weary to worry about going somewhere else.

It was 2 in the morning. With nearly three hours to go before the earliest trains started running, there was nothing to do but wait.

Nomak held her close, a stoic presence that reminded her she didn’t have anything to fear when she was with him.

Still, as the night had worn on, Anna had ignored the discomfort in her wounds to the best of her ability. She couldn’t ignore them anymore, but she tried not to think about them, or what they represented. Nothing was certain yet, except the fact that Nomak was staying with her, and would stay with her. And for now, she let herself be content with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for now! Don't worry, more is coming :)  
> Thank you for reading, and if you enjoyed it, please comment and let me know. It was your encouragement that motivated me to keep this in mind.


	10. Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nomak realizes that his control over his brood has limitations. The uncertainty about Anna's future weighs heavy on them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: sorry if you get notifications for this twice, there was an error in posting before and I had to reupload it. Thanks!  
> FYI, I have gone and changed the name of Anna's sweet, elderly neighbor from Agata to Sofie. This is to reduce confusion as, I feel, 'Agata' and 'Anna' are too similar, which was fine before I'd planned to have a scene with her. And no one probably cares but me :)
> 
> So, Miss Agata is now Miss Sofie.

 

**4:45 AM**

The train was late. Anna figured the discomfort of being overtired without the immediate promise of relief was one of the worst common unpleasantries of the human condition, next to nausea. To his credit, Jared did everything he could to alleviate it; he was very comfortable to lean against and he didn’t seem to mind if she drooled on him a bit.

She lost a few minutes here and there; they seemed to slip by anytime she closed her eyes.

It was nice waking up and finding that he was still with her.

Not just him, either. Early morning commuters began populating the platform with them, working people without the luxury of sleeping in on a Sunday. By 5AM there were maybe half a dozen others, mostly women in headscarves, carrying their work shoes or their lunch in cloth bags.

Jared was remarkably calm, considering how much he liked to avoid crowds. He kept his shoulders hunched and his head bowed forward to hide his increasingly startling appearance.

The train arrived just after five, to the muttering and grumbling of the other commuters. Anna let Jared pick their seat, glad to not have to think. She wasn’t surprised when he chose one away from anyone else. Luckily there were few other passengers this time and day. She could feel the subtle tension in him when they were around others, and while she trusted him implicitly to control his thirst, she knew it was very hard for him.

The metro train pulled out of the station. Outside the window, the lights on the interior of the tunnel flashed by, increasing speed until they emerged into the open. She caught sight of Prague’s lights before they shot back underground.

She didn’t really feel like talking, and neither did he, they just sat in fatigued silence. She spoke only once. She asked what he was going to do with the “kids.”

“They’re following us,” he said. It took Anna a moment to consider this. The train was moving very fast, how were they keeping up? Where would they stay during the day? What if someone saw them? Jared draped his arm over her shoulders and pulled her in close, quieting her thoughts.

“It will be okay,” he said with a well-placed kissed on top of her head. “You don’t need to worry about them.”

She leaned on him, her eyes fixed on the landscape, or lack thereof, through the windows. She played with his fingers. Out of nowhere, it occurred to her that he knew something about the reapers that he wasn’t telling her. There was subtle tension to his posture. It might have simply been a symptom his hunger for all she knew. Whether his tension was real or imagined, and whatever the cause, Anna trusted him. If he said she didn’t need to worry, she wouldn’t. Anyway, that matter was so far beyond her control that it was almost a relief.

They exited the train at her station and made their way outside and across the concrete square with the statue. Now that he was with her, Anna couldn’t imagine doing this alone. The thought of him retreating to his dark concrete hole beneath the streets alone, as though he didn’t deserve the most basic of human comforts, was painful enough. The idea of returning to her apartment alone after making such an intimate connection with someone else was so unpleasant she didn’t want to expend the energy thinking about it.

It might have been the lack of sleep making her brain feel fragmented and just slightly out of alignment, but her thoughts returned to the matter of what-ifs. If she hadn’t met Jared? If she hadn’t gone to Parizska so soon after the closure of the little charity clinic? She could have investigated it on another day when Tobias wasn’t there. She wasn’t foolish enough to think she could have avoided him forever, but she might have had a few more months, or more. She had no idea.

Jared wouldn’t have saved her, though. She had no doubt that he would have sought his revenge with or without her. What if he had done so after she’d been turned? And… most darkly, what if she’d simply been one vampire among many of the others in his path?

It was a morbid thought, but it didn’t bother her. That outcome was so far beyond the actual turn of events, it didn’t carry the same weight to her. No more than any other daydream or musing, and just as easily forgotten.

Jared took her hand and seemingly pulled her back to the surface from her deep, speculative mood. She wrapped his arm around her waist and held it there as they walked familiar routes.

They went through the alley, the same one she’d taken with him before. In shadow, the clutter of trash and discarded planks leaning haphazardly against the grubby brick walls set her on edge.

Jared was alert, the same as he’d been the other times, but something seemed to a little off to him too. Dogs barked distantly, sparse cars drove on other streets. The sound of shuffling papers came from nearby. She nearly missed the shadow emerge from the shadowy silhouette of dented trashcans.The shape of a man.

Jared stepped in front of her, but she was almost too tired to be startled.

The man had a large knife. Anna watched its metal edge flashing in the light from behind her. In slurred but aggressive speech, he demanded money, but she was sluggish to respond except for the hitching of her breath. He moved forward, emerging from the shadows with a threatening hunch to his shoulders, and demanded money a second time, with more heat. Anna caught a glimpse of his overgrown stubble. The weary, sickly cast to his skin and sunken eyes were worsened by the bad lighting of the alleyway. Bared teeth were missing or blackened with rot.

Jared’s shoulders tensed and the man uttered a wild, fearful exclamation. By his widening eyes and shrinking demeanor, she knew Jared had faced the apparent threat with the full effect of his Reaper attributes on display.

The mugger screamed in terror and fell back onto the ground, scattering a couple of plastic trash bins and spilling their contents.

It felt like she was watching a movie. None of it was real. Jared made a move toward the man and she decided, with a dull pang of dread, that Jared was going to kill him.

But he didn’t.

Instead, Jared removed something from his pocket and threw it down. It landed on the man, who was frozen in unblinking terror. Beneath him the ground darkened in a spreading pool of urine.

Jared didn’t speak, but when he looked at Anna again, his eyes were startling pinpricks of black in the center of bloodshot whites.

Anna took his hand, and with only a quick glance at the mugger, she led Jared away from the alley. They left the mugger behind as he looked numbly at an unfurling roll of Czech Korunas scattered over him. She was more concerned with Jared and felt her tension fade as the fight response bled out of him.

She held onto his hand tight and brought him to the front door of her apartment building, which called for both a key and a code. In the shade of the concrete overhang, she hugged him close. He was composed, again, but the eerie, cold reflections of his eyes remained.

“Are you going to be ok?” she asked.

“I’m fine... I just want to go inside.”

She would have loved to help him, but to her embarrassment, she realized she didn’t have her lobby key for the same reason she didn’t have anything else. Jared didn’t say anything, he just pulled a bobby pin out of his hoodie pocket with a light nod. He crouched before the lock and began working the pin into the slot. Anna looked on, admittedly impressed.

The fact that he could do this was at once sexy and unsettling, though the former trumped the latter. She remembered the padlock to the service tunnel where he’d made his temporary home. There was a soft click and Jared smiled and nodded to the keypad, waiting.

Right, there was a key code, too. With the lock mechanism bypassed, the front door clicked open.

“You didn’t mention you had such a useful skill,” she said as she pushed the door open.

“It’s something that stayed with me from my sordid life of crime,” he said, following her in with a sly look.

The superintendent had repaired the elevator at some point, and she was grateful. Now she wouldn’t have to ask Jared for a piggyback ride up the stairs. Fixed or not, the rickety lift still wheezed and complained.

It would be incredibly ironic if it weren’t the vampires or some other supernatural thing that killed her, but something as mundane as a weary old elevator giving up the ghost with her in it. Anna decided to keep her darkly humorous thoughts to herself.

Jared unlocked her apartment door and deadbolt with similar lack of issue, and though she was fine with him being able to do it, she considered that getting a pick-proof lock installed wouldn’t be a bad idea. He probably wasn’t the only one who possessed that particular skill set, and mentally she set a reminder for herself to get some sort of extra security measure from the hardware store for both herself, and Miss Sofie while she was at it.

He walked in first, and she couldn’t help but think he was doing it in case someone had gotten into her apartment while they’d been away. It was plain that her apartment was empty and untouched for the most part. The air was stagnant, laden with the scent of old garbage and a cat box that could use some refreshing.

It was overwhelming enough that when she bent down to unlace her shoes, she was knocked off balance by it.

Jared steadied her arm. “Anna?”

“It’s been a long night,” she said, shaking the dizziness away and kicking her boots aside.

“I can seal up the windows. Go take care of yourself.” Jared told her this in a soft, low voice that she couldn’t bring herself to argue with.

She showed him where the duct tape and foil were and made a beeline to the shower. She only had two windows: the large one in the bedroom, and a small rectangular one near the ceiling in the bathroom. Its textured glass was shaded a dark yellow, but light did filter through. It was a cheap enough flat that she had been able to afford rent on her meager salary, but that meant she’d sacrificed having a view.

Anna went into the bathroom. She’d just cleaned the covered cat box on Friday, Mariuska wouldn’t have had time to mess it up too much, but the smell was overwhelming. She checked, it was nearly unused. Her stomach trembled and without a thought she pushed it out into the carpeted bedroom and shut the door.

She didn’t look at her face in the mirror, she just used it to check her bandages.

She’d have a pretty cool scar from the glancing bullet wound in her side, for certain. She didn’t care that it had gotten her away from Tobias, she was glad the gun wasn’t in her possession anymore. At the very least it seemed to be healing just fine, though the skin around the edges was a bit irritated from her various exertions during their night out.

The tenderness she felt through the bandages on her neck and forearm warned her that she might not be so lucky with them, at first. Lacerations were a fairly simple matter, but puncture wounds were tricky; it was difficult to thoroughly cleanse the subcutaneous part of the injury, which meant the entry point might heal while infection grew underneath. She could only imagine the variety of germs that populated the mouth of a regular blood drinker.

She did the best she could with rubbing alcohol. She was utilitarian about cleaning them, though too tired, perhaps to be as gentle as she should have been. The sting of alcohol on the inflamed skin eclipsed unpleasant intrusive thoughts, even if only for a few seconds.

She applied antibacterial ointment and sealed it under waterproof bandage patches. She turned on the shower and went back into the bedroom to find some clothes in her dresser.

Jared was finishing up the window, it seemed. He tore off a strip of duct tape with his teeth and a bare, pallid hand flattened it on the edge of the foil. He’d done it in a way that made it possible to open the window without tearing the foil. She’d need to buy more next time she was out, or some other suitable material. She didn’t know how long he’d be shacking up with her.

Anna pulled out clean underwear and a sports bra for laziness, along with some leggings and an oversized band shirt. She threw a pair of men’s socks to Nomak. They landed by his holey-socked feet.

“Are you trying to tell me something?” he asked wryly, bending over to pick them up.

She smirked and nodded toward the open drawer on her way to the bathroom.

“Got some tee shirts and pajama pants that’ll fit you in there. Feel free to keep the socks but I want the pants back. They’re really comfortable.”

She didn’t wait for him to respond, she went into the bathroom’s steamy air, undressed, and kicked her clothes toward the hamper just outside the bathroom door. She committing herself to the hot cascade of water. The city’s tap had always smelled faintly of chlorine, enough that she liked to use a filter pitcher, but she didn’t care right now. She uttered an indulgent groan in appreciation of the long-anticipated warmth.

Anna stood there with her eyes closed for some length of time and just let the water run over her.

It had a pleasant blanking effect on her. In a cocoon of warm steam, she was safe from the outside world.

“Anna?” Jared’s soft voice came from the other side of the curtain. Anna jolted awake. She didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep standing. The water was cold, she shivered and hurried to turn off the faucet.

“How long have I been in here?”

“Half an hour,” came the soft voice in the bathroom.

“Oh god, the water bill,” she muttered, teeth chattering. She opened the curtain and groped blindly for the towel hanging on the rack. It was handed to her instead and she accepted, rubbing the water out of her eyes with chattering teeth.

“You’re so cold,” Jared said, touching her cheek with his knuckles. The comment was funny, coming from him. She was sure that if she were to take his temperature and measure that of the room, they’d be the same.

Either way, she let him usher her into the bedroom. It was strange not having Mariuska in there, but she thought it for the best that Miss Sofie keep an eye on her just a little bit longer. Anna was too tired to deal with the social aspect of seeing her neighbor again at the moment. That could come later. Now, all she was concerned with was getting under her covers and letting her body heat build up again.

Jared had gone back into the bathroom with the foil and the duct tape and by the sound of it, was covering the small window over the shower, now. She didn’t think about it too much, but something about him fortifying her apartment against the impending daylight gave her a little nudge of contentment.

What seemed like moments later, but might have been more, she felt the bed shift. Jared’s body, as completely bare as hers and icy cold, slid under the covers. He felt damp, like he’d taken a shower, too, but by the iciness of his skin, he hadn’t waited for the hot water to come back. She embraced him anyway, fitting herself against him, trying to repress the shivers.

Being there naked with him gave her a little stirring in her belly, but nothing more than that. They could deal with that later, too. She kissed his face and felt him smile with her fingertips on his lips.

\------

**1:00PM, Sunday**

Anna didn’t know how long she slept at first. She woke, groggy and sore to a dark, timeless and silent room to find herself tangled against Nomak beneath the cover, and then she remembered and let herself drift in a comfortable state of half-wakefulness.

He was warmer, now, thanks to her body heat insulated by the cocoon of her down comforter, but he didn’t breathe or move. She managed to keep the immediate panic down long enough for her rational brain to catch up. Reason returned more quickly this time. She touched his face in the dark, cupping the sharp corner of his jaw and cheekbone. He stirred, pulling in a breath, and then let it out without inhaling a second time.

Carefully, she extricated herself from the tangle of their bodies with the undeniable need to see to her basic needs. According to her clock, it was one in the afternoon.

She padded to the bathroom as quietly as she could.

Her mouth was dry and sour tasting. She hadn’t brushed her teeth properly in at least a day, and she was thirsty. She attended to it now and drank from the faucet, and checked her bandages.

The bullet wound at her side was scabbing over nicely, and she cleaned that one first, hissing with the first touch of alcohol against the raw graze. The marks on her neck and wrist remained open and glistening. They wept thin, watery fluid.

Though her brief stint in nursing school didn’t come close to qualifying her for assessing the physiological traits of supernatural predators, she thought it best that she stay grounded and not panic at the sight of them. It was fully possible that vampires had some form of anticoagulant in their saliva to keep wounds from closing as quickly, like mosquitoes, or vampire bats. It would leave any bite wounds open to infection for longer. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility, and it was only a coincidence that the thought might be comforting to her.

She stared at the puffy tooth marks on her wrist as her mind took her to dark places. A leather chair, and a body pressing against her. The sting of teeth and the gentle suction of lips accompanied by his small, hungry noises.

She rebandaged them and finished up with her usual routine, face wash and lotion, hair oil at the tips, and traded out her ear plugs for black steel rings that dangled from her stretched earlobes.

She took out her stud labret piercing and inserted a smaller black ring in its place. As an afterthought, she smudged some kohl at her eyelash line. She gave the silver cross, her mother’s, sitting in the jewelry dish in her medicine cabinet one lingering look before leaving it and closing the mirror door. She gathered their shed clothes from the floor.

She dressed in comfortable clothes quietly in the unyielding darkness. If she hadn’t known firsthand that Nomak was there, her room would seem empty. She closed the door quietly behind her and went into the kitchen to make some tea.

She followed the process almost by muscle memory. Picked at her cuticles while waiting for the water kettle to heat, dropped a couple of tea bags into her oversized mug, and then poured the contents of the kettle in before it had a chance to whistle.

The pleasant direction of her mind was spoiled by the nausea she felt at the first scent of herb-laden steam from her steeping mug. She didn’t want to waste it, and the hot drink soothed her stomach some, anyway. She would try to make food later, she still wasn’t feeling her best.

Anna thought of her dad. Her conversation with Nomak the night before had kept him firmly in her mind since then, and she knew that she needed to speak to him. But as she sat before her computer, bundled in a blanket with her hot tea in hand, she didn't know what to say. The blank email text box stared back at her, but the words didn’t come. The events that had transpired since she’d last communicated with him, jumbled together in her mind and clogged up the joints of her fingers.

Jared was sleeping in her bed, and part of her wished she could join him and shut her mind up for a little while longer. She scanned the news sites on the crawling internet connection, scouring for any mention of the Parizka blood bank massacre. The silence in the headlines was deafening. Or maybe it was the silence in the apartment was too much, too.

She needed to get her cat. Which meant visiting Miss Sofie. As much as Anna loved to have tea with the old woman, she wasn’t looking forward to this visit. She still felt drained and tired and would have to take extra care that she only told her what was safe to know.

Anna went back into the bedroom to dress herself. still taking care to make as little noise as possible. She pulled an oversized sweater over her tee shirt, and wrapped a soft knit scarf around her neck, the better to avoid any awkward questions. She left her apartment with her near-full mug of tea cooling on the coffee table.

\--------

**3:11PM**

“You look sick, are you eating enough?” Miss Sofie said as soon as she opened the door. Anna was momentarily taken aback by the lack of preamble or pleasantries, but it was fairly normal, as was not having the chance to answer. “No matter, Miss Sofie feed you now.”

The short, plump woman barely stopped for breath as she went back inside, knowing Anna would follow. Her TV was blasting local news at a volume slightly higher than was comfortable, but Anna was used to it. Sunlight filtered through the lace curtains in the kitchen and Anna’s eyes ached as they adjusted to the change of light from her dark cave of an apartment. She closed the door behind her. The smell of last night’s cooking (borscht?), flowery potpurri, and baking pastry hit her at once, and the familiarity of it all soothed her.

“You like _zelený čaj_ or _hraběšově šedá_?” Green tea or Earl Grey?

Miss Sofie went to the row of tins on her pea-green Formica countertop. There was evidence of a recent grocery shopping trip in the folded reusable cloth grocery bags on the counter and the neatly folded receipt. Anna thought of the tea she’d forgotten about in her apartment and the disquiet in her stomach.

“Green, please,” she said, going to the yellow kitchen cabinet with the mugs without being asked or told. The entire kitchen was decorated in pure 70s style, and by the peeling, brown-patterned linoleum floor, it hadn’t been redecorated since that time.

“Your cat, she eat so much,” Sofie said, scooping some tea into the teapot’s strainer and turned on her electric kettle. “Four cans. I had to clean her face after, too, the little piggy.”

“ _Four_ cans? In just a couple days?” Anna blurted, a little stunned.

The piggy in question was asleep and curled up in the soft indentation of Sofie’s winged TV chair, shedding her white fur on the colorful crocheted blanket that Anna had no doubt had been on the old woman’s lap only moments before.

“She always eating. I think she has worm in her gut,” Miss Sofie said, walking stiffly to her old TV and muting the local news channel. Anna bent down to peer into the oven at what her neighbor was concocting. Looked like a batch of kolach, traditional Czech pastries, flaky and round with fruity filling. Sofie came over, the soft padding of her slippered feet alerting Anna before the wrinkle hand lighted on her upper arm and squeezed in a brief show of affection before nudging her toward the kitchen table. That and the wooden chairs were antiques by now, painted the same color as the cabinets.

“No wonder she likes you so much, if you believe her,” Anna said with a smirk, doing as she was told and taking her seat. She broke from tradition and sat in the chair facing away from the kitchen window. The light in her tired eyes was starting to give her a mild headache.

“She cry if I don’t feed her. You take her home yes? Or you leave her one more night? No problem if you leave her,” Sofie said, walking back to the now boiling kettle. Some of Anna’s guilt for imposing Mariuska’s care on her neighbor dissipated. Despite Anna’s visits, she knew Miss Sofie was often lonely.

She lifted the full plastic pitcher without issue and poured the hot water into the teapot, replaced the lid, and brought it to the table. She set it atop a ceramic tile meant for hot things and slipped a handmade quilted cozy over it to keep it warm while the tea brewed.

“I mean… if you want to keep her another night, I don’t mind,” Anna said.

“No, no. She miss you too much.”

Anna looked dubiously at the sleeping mass of fat and fluff snoring softly on Sofie’s chair. Mari only stirred when the oven timer went off.

“You look sick. Are you sick?” Miss Sofie said, returning to her ealier line of questioning as she donned the rooster-patterned oven gloves hung beside the kitchen sink.

“Just haven’t slept much recently,” Anna said, blushing despite her efforts not to. Sofie tittered as she opened the oven. Vanilla and butter scent billowed out and filled the room.

 _“He’s good to you, I hope?”_ Sofie asked in Czech, looking at Anna with sharp blue eyes behind thick glasses. Anna looked down and toyed with the inside of her piercing.

 _“Yes,”_ she answered. Her face must have conveyed as much, because Miss Sofie pulled them out and set them atop her stove, closed the oven.

 _“Good to you in the bedroom, too I hope,”_ Miss Sofie said. Anna’s brain caught up on the translation and blurted out laughing. Sofie tried to hide a devious smirk as she wafted the scent of pastry to her nose.

 _“He is very kind,”_ Anna said carefully sidestepping the question. _“He makes me happy.”_

 _“So I hear,”_ Miss Sofie said. Anna’s blush deepened. Someone might have heard her and Jared the other night.

Her immediate neighbors were a pair of middle aged women whom she suspected were a couple. She didn’t know much about them, but Sofie made it a point to keep up with all of the goings on in the apartment and could probably name their work schedules, immediate family, and hobbies.

 _“Does he have a good job?”_ Sofie asked, carrying the plate to the table. Anna chewed on her lip and stalled by checking the tea’s progress. She wanted to lie as little as possible, which meant being honest about some things that Miss Sofie still wouldn’t approve of. She proceeded to pour the tea into the china cups decorated with gilded pink roses.

“ _He does not have a job,_ ” Anna said, sliding the teacup across the table. Miss Sofie’s finely wrinkled mouth pursed in disapproval and she took a sip of her tea.

She said something in Czech that amounted to ‘you can’t afford another stray’ and Anna couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed. Anna shrugged. Sofie gave her a smile and clasped her hand across the table. Her palm was cool and soft and her grip was strong and reassuring.

 _“We don’t get to choose where love goes,”_ Sofie said, relenting with a softer expression. _“Just don’t spend all your money on him.”_

Anna would have said something about the use of the ‘L’ word, and the fact that, thus far, the only money she’d spent on him amounted to one convenience store hot dog and a bad cup of coffee, but Sofie didn’t wait for an answer.

_“Does he have a good family?”_

Anna smirked. Despite the inquisition, Anna felt better in the elderly woman’s company, it was better than trying to act as though nothing had changed and kill time alone in her apartment like she often did. She took a bite out of a scone as she tried to find the best way to answer this second, deceptively simple question. The pastry crust was flaky and buttery, and its filling was tart and sweet. Her stomach roiled and she put it back on the plate, eyes on the ceiling to allay her nausea while. The bite she’d taken went down dry and left a lump in her throat.

 _“He is a good man. But he is from a bad family,”_ Anna said carefully, knowing that she’d messed up one declination or other. This was one of the longer conversations she’d had in Czech. Usually they spoke English or Miss Sofie did most of the talking.

 _“He cares about me. And he helped me when…_ ” she trailed off, searched for the right words. _“When I had need.”_

 _“Is he handsome?”_ Sofie asked, nibbling her kolach.

Anna grinned down into her teacup.

Sofie chuckled and dabbed at the crumbs on the corners of her mouth with an old lace-edged napkin. That was about as much as she felt like talking about him.

Anna steered the conversation away from Jared by asking about Sofie’s adult children.

Anna listened to Sofie’s latest family news, which led into a funny anecdote about her husband Teodor. He’d passed away in ’78 from a stroke, but Sofie still spoke of him with fondness. She meandered from one topic to another without much pause, and it somehow led into a discussion of her favorite soap opera’s latest plot development.

Listening to the soft, dry voice was almost as soothing as music to her, but at the moment Anna couldn’t really focus. A well-placed nod, or question was all the encouragement Sofie needed. She could go for hours, and while she might have been willing to indulge any other time, Anna wasn’t sure how much longer she could manage. Sofie’s apartment was usually on the stuffy, warm side, especially this time of year, but Anna felt the chill on her hands when her tea, mostly untouched, had cooled. She hated being sick, and having come to anticipate it with dread, Anna was overly aware of the warning signs.

By the time Miss Sofie had finished her third kolach and moved the topic onto the latest local news, Anna could feel the heavy-headedness and stiff-neck associated with a low-grade fever.

Anna was searching for a polite way to make an exit when Mariuska decided it was time to go first. With a mew, the puffball unfurled herself from her spot on Sofie’s chair. The drowsy Persian hopped down, sauntered over, and rubbed her body on Anna’s legs, leaving a few stray white hairs behind.

“I talk enough,” Sofie said, bending down in her seat to pet the cat. “You go home. Make _him_ take care of you.”

Anna accepted a baggy of leftover kolach with a little guilt. She didn’t have much of a desire to eat them at the moment, but she might later. She picked up Mariuska, who already felt heavier than when Anna had left her, and let Sofie usher her out the door almost as pushy as when she’d made her sit.

“I make borscht later, I bring you some, yes?” Sofie asked, standing in her doorway while Anna tried to negotiate her doorknob and her armful.

Anna thought about meat stew and her stomach flipped. She decline gracefully and said goodbye with a smile. She closed her apartment door behind her before giving in to the urge to just sit on the floor where she stood.

“You’re going on a diet,” Anna said to Mari, who flicked her tail and sauntered fluffily to her empty dish. “And I’m exercising.”

The diet might have to come sooner rather than later, thanks to Miss Sofie’s affectionate indulgence of the cat’s appetite. There was only one can of Happy Cat left in the cupboard. She couldn’t imagine making a grocery run right now, though. Mari wouldn’t starve to death. Anna put the pastries into the fridge.

She defiantly reheated her tea and brought it back to the couch, rewrapped herself in her blanket, and sat down with her laptop plugged in to the phone line. She took a deep breath to gather her thoughts and opened a new email.

The words didn’t come to her right away. She sat there, trying to slake her thirst with tea she didn’t want, and which didn’t seem to help anyway, as she tried to think of the best way to lie to her dad. Mari eventually gave up waiting by her dish and joined Anna on the couch. Her weight and warmth was a comfort, though she was doing her best to supplant the laptop, and Anna couldn’t forget what Jared had said about her, that animals could usually tell if something wasn’t right. She took heart in Mari’s apparent lack of concern.

The current focus was her dad. Talking to Sofie had helped, at least as far as finding the best way to talk to her dad without telling him every unbelievable detail. Anna began by telling of the clinic closure. She glossed over the entire incident at Parizska with a throwaway line about it being too far of a commute and suggesting that she didn’t like the work environment anyway. She managed to fill a paragraph with that.

She watched the blinking cursor and then looked toward the closed bedroom door. Apart from the entire Tobias incident, and the deep-rooted corruption that had made a place like Parizska possible, there was only one other notable thing that had happened to her since the last time she’d written.

Thinking about Jared gave her a pleasant, wobbly feeling in the pit of her stomach. Anna wasn’t sure she should even mention him to her dad. She wouldn’t have been able to hide Jared from Miss Sofie, but her dad only knew what she told him. And… if she was being brutally honest with herself, she didn’t know how much time she would have with him.

Still, she had to say something. So, she told her dad that she’d met someone nice and had been on a couple of dates. She didn’t know if it was going anywhere, but for now she was having fun and being more social.

She closed with an early happy birthday message and the promise that she’d email him again soon.

Jared roused when she crawled into bed with him. He made a throaty rumble of appreciation when she pressed her naked back against his front.

 _“So warm,”_ he muttered in Czech. She suspected he’d spoken without being totally conscious. She pulled his one arm around her, and he tucked the other under the curve of her neck. He was like ice against her feverish skin, but she appreciated the comfort of his body far more than she despaired its temperature.

She was fighting it. She didn’t need Jared to tell her that, she’d had the flu before. She’d just have to let it play out. And at the end, when all of this was over, it might be time for a nice, long vacation. Maybe somewhere warm, she thought with a chill. She tried not to focus on the thought that Jared wouldn’t be there with her.

\-------

**Sunday, 6:37 PM.**

Anna was awake before Jared. She came out into the kitchen and stretched her sore muscles. Mari was asleep on the couch. She felt better after her nap, and even went to the fridge when the hollow in her stomach called to her.

She still felt a bit under the weather, but she was in a good mood, and as she reheated Miss Sofie’s pastries in the oven, she hummed some off-key version of an old favorite song.

The pastries didn’t appeal to her any more than they had earlier, but they didn’t turn her stomach either. It was a good thing, and as she sat down to eat at the couch, she paid close attention to how her body seemed to handle it. So far so good.

She heard the bed shifting in the next room and looked up to see a sleepy looking Jared wearing the socks she’d left out for him. He’d gotten back into his loose pants and the hoodie he always seemed to wear. At least he’d accepted the socks she’d given him, which were remnants of her first shopping trip, when she bought men’s socks by mistake.

“You going out tonight?” she asked, noting the ill cast to his complexion.

“Soon,” he answered, glancing over his shoulder, stifling an immediate cough. His eyes burned glassy and bright. In a single word he’d managed to convey just how desperately hungry he was without overstating it. If his hunger was as agonizing as he’d said, she couldn’t imagine how he felt. He was doing well to hide it.

“How are you feeling?” Nomak asked. Anna quelled the brief surge of impatience. She was starting to dislike that question, though she knew he meant well.

“I’m good, actually,” she said, trying to keep the defiance out of her tone. “I had something to eat earlier. Emailed my dad, had tea with Sofie. I’m going to do some job hunting online tonight, I think.”

“That’s good to hear,” he said. He sounded sincere, but there was something about the way he looked at her that nagged in the back of her mind.

He seemed to be waiting for something more. Maybe a more thorough breakdown of her physical state? She was tired of talking about herself, though. Luckily she didn’t have to, she had a response email from her dad.

“Dad wants to come visit next Spring,” she said, scanning over his message. Nomak busied himself by her bookshelf and Mari watched him from Anna’s lap with unblinking focus. “April’s probably the best time,” she continued. “It’ll still be a bit chilly, but it’s a good time of year I think. I kind of missed out last time. It’ll be good to see Prague in the Spring. Maybe even the countryside”

Nomak made a noncommittal noise and picked up a book. She didn’t know what she expected him to say, none of it was probably relevant to him, but it still bothered her that he didn’t answer her.

“What do you think?” she finally asked.

“It sounds nice,” he said without inflection. Anna focused back to the email, unsettled. What was his deal? Anna stroked Mari’s fur and waited until her mild irritation faded to speak up.

“Something’s on your mind,” she said, deciding the direct approach was best.

Nomak faced her, and his eyes dropped to Mariuska curled up on the couch next to Anna. The cat was calm but wary.

“She seems happy that you’re back,” he said. Anna sighed and shook her head with a smile.

“There’s a can of cat food in there,” she said, pointing to the cupboard by the fridge. “Want to feed her for me?”

Nomak seemed amused and curious.

“It’s not going to make a difference,” he said, but he did as she asked. He opened the can, and his nose wrinkled slightly. As unappealing as it might have smelled to him, Mari was very interested. Her attention shifted from Nomak to the food.

Anna watched with wry amusement as Jared lowered into a crouch beside Mari’s bowl and shook the turkey and rice meal into it. Mari was on the floor and walking toward him before he could stand up again. He stared at her with apprehension, but in a move that surprised even Anna, the cat gave him one last look, feathery white tail twitching, before burying her flat face in her dish.

“I told you she just needed more time,” she said with a smirk to the soft wet sounds of her eating.

“I guess you were right,” he said, but he was still clearly doubtful.

Nomak’s eyes flickered up to her, white flames floating in the black-purple pools of his sockets. This time, she could almost hear his thoughts, poorly concealed beneath the mundane conversation.

“Quit looking at me like I’m terminal,” she said finally, maintaining a steady tone. It was out in the open, now, there was no reason to put it off.

“You said there was a chance. I know you don’t think it’s likely, but I’m not giving up hope yet, and I’d appreciate it if you did the same.”

Nomak was quiet, and it was almost worse than a direct response.

“Say something. Do you know something I don’t? Can you already tell?” she asked. And when he didn’t answer, she growled with frustration. “ _Please talk to me.”_

“No, I can’t tell. But I am trying to be realistic.”

Anna rolled her eyes, at once relieved and annoyed. “”

“Are you saying I’m being unrealistic?”

“You’re scared,” he said quietly, not breaking his stare. “I understand. I just wish I knew what to say to comfort you without lying to you.”

Anna glared..

“You said there was a chance that I’ll… that I can fight it off.”

“Yes, there is a chance,” he said, but the words did the opposite of comfort her.

“Well? How likely is it?” she asked.

Jared looked uncomfortable, like he wanted to touch her or hug her, but was unwilling to cross the room to do so. Instead, he stood awkwardly by Mariuska. The cat was more concerned with her food than the tense conversation happening around her.

“I’ve never seen a human recover, myself.”

That statement triggered a cascade of further questions. Had _he_ turned people into vampires before his mutation? How many had he turned, if so? Were any of them still around now? Were these even appropriate questions to ask?

“How do you know?” she decided. “You said it yourself, you’re young. You don’t know everything.”

“That’s true,” he said. Anna growled with impatience, and he ran a hand back over his scalp, tense and, she knew, famished. She couldn’t speak for him, but when she was hungry, the world always seemed a little less bright. He wasn’t being realistic, she was.

“Don’t you need to go feed?” she asked, surprised by the bitter edge to the question. Guilt somewhat dampened the spite that curdled in her stomach. He dropped his eyes and licked his cracked lips.

“Yes, and so do the rest of them,” he said. The silence stretched.

“I’m feeling better,” she said, softening her voice, trying to come up with a fitting apology and failing. “Honestly, I am.”

Anna’s chest hurt, and her eyes pricked with the threat of emotion. _Don’t cry, you idiot,_ she thought to herself furiously.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said, retrieving his coat by the door. Anna tried to pretend that she was more interested in her dad’s email than him. It seemed that what Jared had been trying to avoid was that there might be no point planning things for next Spring. If she turned, her life would be over.

She fumed quietly, chewing on her lip.

“It would be best if you stayed inside tonight,” he said.

Kneejerk anger flared.

“Please just leave,” she said.

Jared watched her silently. Without another word, he went through the bedroom. She heard the window slide open, foil crinkling, and then shut again.

She waited until she was sure he was out of earshot before she let go of her frustrated exhausted tears. What did he know? Far more than she did as far as these things were concerned, anyway, but he wasn’t omniscient. Jared was, to his bones, a man who’d seen, and participated in, terrible things in his life. Things which darkened his perception of the world and himself.

She hoped she’d shown him in their short time together this far that there were other ways to look at things. Other truths. She _was_ being realistic, nothing was decided yet.

She felt guilty about sending him away on such unpleasant terms, but she didn’t really want to deal with his cynicism or his assumptions. Mariuska, who’d reclaimed her spot on Anna’s lap, was unconcerned by the world-shaking matters running through Anna’s head. Stroking her back, at least, helped some of the tension bleed out of her.

She really did feel better.  She wouldn’t jump to any conclusions of her own, but there was no reason to assume the worst. And, well, if the worst happened… she’d have to figure that out when it came.

\------------

**7:15PM**

Nomak’s chest ached like he’d been punched. At the moment he couldn’t tell his emotional pain from the physical pain of his starvation. All he could think about was Anna. Even with cosmetics, her eyes had been rimmed with a weary, sickly red, and glossed over with a feverish shine. Anna, angry with him because she was scared of what she didn’t understand, and what she couldn’t control. Anna, maintaining hope when he felt none.

Three reapers lurked beneath the pitted asphalt street, pacing with animal listlessness. He’d wondered earlier if he should have said something to her about their self-propagation and the lapse of control that had let it happen. Now, he was glad he hadn’t. He didn’t know how she would feel about it, and he didn’t want to give her yet another thing to worry over. It was done, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Admittedly, it didn’t bother him in the least. It meant that his children would continue creating more of themselves with or without his instruction, and the rapid growth in numbers would only help his cause. It also meant that he had a lot to learn about them. He had them follow him beneath as he walked above. It was a dangerous game, perhaps, to let himself be seen in his state. Humans went about their business, walking to and from their destinations alone or in groups, oblivious to the danger he might pose them.

There wasn’t any danger, really. His stomach was as tight as a fist, and he knew by the shooting pain in his abdomen and ribs that his body was starting to eat itself from the inside. But he posed no threat to them.

He knew it could get much, much worse. He would survive up to a week without feeding, as he’d learned during one of the many ‘experiments,’ though it wasn’t an experience he wanted to revisit. Barely able to think or move, every nerve alight with unrelenting pain and the burning, overwhelming need for nourishment. If nothing else, it had given him an idea of his limits and what he felt now was a pale shadow of that hell. Now, he was more concerned with the brood. He knew by the chaotic signals he was getting from them that they were significantly worse off than he was.

He needed to feed them. And he needed to test them, and himself. He needed an army, but it only mattered if it was an army he could control.

The first kill of the night he gave entirely to them. The vampire was so intent on stalking his prey that he didn’t see the three creatures welling up from the sewer like an overflowing infestation until they overcame him. Nomak watched with equal measures disgust and pleasure as the brood nearly tore the vampire to pieces in their eagerness. But he stopped them before the damage became great enough to cause him to die and burn into a useless pile of ash.

Nomak crouched beside the body in the dark margin of light to the side of the alley and watched. He wanted to see how long it took for the vampire to turn. His brood, satiated enough to be still when he told them to, waited out of sight. He wasn’t worried, this was a less populated area of Prague. Nomak, as detached as one of the scientists that had prodded him, observed.

Over the span of half an hour, the vampire’s appearance changed rapidly. Nomak touched its head and its hair fell away in clumps. A line formed from his bottom lip around his chin, at first a shallow scarred channel, and then a deep rut. Just past the thirty-minute mark, the creature’s eyes shot open, wide with corneas as pale as Nomak imagined his own were. The chemical receptiveness to Nomak’s will opened like a line on the other end of a short wave radio. He told it to stand. After a moment of twitching muscles, face tensing and relaxing as its body continued to change on the inside, the fourth pushed itself to its feet and crouched, watching Nomak and awaiting further instruction.

Half an hour, and he’d added another to his number. That’s all it took. The revelation was terrifying and heartening in equal measure. He looked at all four of his reapers, and smiled. This would be easy.

Next he tested the strength of his control. Up to now, he’d issued commands indirectly. Now, he reached back beneath his hood and collar and touched the protruding flesh on his upper back. He touched one of them on its cheek, peering down into the wretched creature’s face.

‘Stay out of sight,’ he told it. ‘Guard Anna. Kill any vampire that comes near. But _stay out of sight.’_

It scurried to comply, saturated with Nomak’s scent and will. He knew that no matter how distant they were, it wouldn’t escape the command. Not this time.

The next kill came soon after the first. A turned female that preyed on children. She’d fed only that night, and Nomak took heart in the fact that it would be her last meal. When she turned, he was interested to see that her appearance became as genderless as the others’. Sexual characteristics melted away into monstrous androgyny when its organs shifted and repositioned to suit their new purpose, and another hairless, pallid wretch joined him.

The third kill of the night was his. He’d waited long enough, built the anticipation up until he’d found the perfect target. A drug dealer standing on the corner in a decrepit area of the city. Nomak knew his appearance might have made a normal human blanch, but to the vampire dealing poison, he looked like another customer. Perhaps one so far down the hole of addiction that he was reaching the end of his life, and all the more desperate to buy relief.

He tried to keep a hold on his self-control. He’d enjoyed the subterfuge when he’d infiltrated Parizska, though the circumstances had been more urgen. Drawing it out would only make the kill sweeter. At the long-awaited promise of blood, however he felt his self control slip. The sensation surpassed ecstasy. It didn’t matter. No one would witness the brutality, and if they did, violent crime wouldn’t be so out of place here.

His mind blanked for a long, precious stretch of time, before he remembered his brood.

He fed only as much as he needed to quench the thirst and let them have the rest.

Almost giddy with the renewed energy flooding his limbs, he walked away easily, already smelling the air for more. Now his children numbered six: the five with him and the one he’d sent to stand guard over Anna. She needed time alone, and perhaps it was for the best. He could delay the war no longer, and tonight he intended to do as much as he could to prepare himself. He’d been fortunate enough to spend a night with Anna, but he needed to think ahead, now.

Their numbers surpassed ten within a matter of hours.

No matter how many he added to his rank, they followed his instruction without fail. He even tested this by allowing all but one to feed. The one he’d singled out didn’t hesitate to obey him, even when the violence of the feeding sent vampire blood spraying over its face. It didn’t lick it away, not even a taste, because Nomak had forbidden it. If he had more time, he might have tested their loyalty and his theory that they would starve themselves to death if order to.

In the dark, unlit rural areas past the densely populated meat of the city, he took greater liberty. He made them climb, to jump, to flank, to surround, in orders that grew ever more complex. Every single one was executed with unwavering obedience, more perfect than an army of trained soldiers. It was far easier to control them, too. Soldiers had autonomy. The reapers were simply an extension of his will. He decided what he wanted and they fulfilled it to the best of their ability.

There was a limit, though. They weren’t capable of independent thought, and any order that required personal judgment. If left without direction, they acted on some basic instinct to feed, and were not aware of themselves to any sentient capacity. As such, they were too simple to understand the need to differentiate between vampires, familiars, and innocent humans, or the need for discretion. He learned this at the cost of near disaster, but caught it just in time before someone undeserving came to harm. He’d changed over the last week, and it went beyond his transformation into the super predator he’d become.

There was a time, not so long ago that he wouldn’t have thought twice about the death of a random mortal. He’d had forever, after all, and they were destined to die anyway. It didn’t matter the cause, it would come one way or another with or without his help. He’d never kept pets, familiars, and he didn’t see the point in them. Now… the thought of how close he’d come to slaughtering the mugger, and in front of Anna, brought him great regret. He’d changed alright, and he cause was as plain as the scent that lingered on him.

Anna. Anna, who was alone in her fear, right now without anyone who could know what she was going through. No, he thought, shaking it off. Anna, who was far stronger than he gave her credit for, had told him to leave. He had to separate his guilt over what had befallen her (something for which he may never know his true blame) from what she wanted. She was afraid, but it seemed she needed to process it under her own terms, and nothing Nomak could say to her would fix it for her. If she needed him, he would be there in as much of a capacity as he could manage, for as long as he could manage. If she needed him to leave her be, he would do so.

The army grew, and with more to spread the pestilence, they could turn with ever greater frequency. There was no sign that his will weakened when communicated to so many. In fact, their numbers seemed only to reinforce his control. Many vampires would meet their end tonight, and their subsequent rebirth.

Once, he did check on the watchdog. The creature had remained where Nomak had left it, in the sewers beneath the street with a clear vantage of the building through a storm drain. He was also interested to see that where he’d left one, there were now two reapers holding position. Without Tobias there to maintain his territory, it seemed that the area was no longer off limits. Another vampire had become Nomak’s slave. Not only that, but it had adopted its maker’s orders almost as surely as though Nomak had given them himself. Direct touch, it appeared, strengthened his control.

Anna would be safe with them watching her. With that, he resumed his hunt, to see just how many reapers he could create in one night.

He knew now why he was such a threat to the Vampire Nation, but he wondered if even they knew the extent of his ability. He doubted it, but it didn’t matter. He’d show them.

\-------

**1:30 AM Monday**

Anna only felt better as the night wore on. At first, she was sad to be alone, and even considered paying Miss Sofie another visit. Ultimately she decided against it. She didn’t think she could weather another round of prying questions from her. Instead, Anna put in her headphones and listened to music while she cleaned the apartment.

After that, she even did the laundry, toeing the line of compliance with Jared’s wishes that she stay inside. She didn’t need to leave the building to use the washing machines. Part of her hoped to see another resident of the building, but after midnight on a Monday morning, she wasn’t likely to see anyone, and she didn’t.

She felt antsy, which she took as a good sign. When Jared came back later, as she hoped he would, he would be happy to see how much better she was. It would give him something to hope for.

She wanted to apologize to him, too… she was dealing with heavy matters, likely things outside of his experience. It didn’t stop him from trying. Even if she grew weary of being coddled and fussed over, she couldn’t hold it against him. At the same time, she didn’t want to see him consumed by it. No matter what happened, she didn’t blame Jared for any of it, and she didn’t want it to get to him.

When the washer was done, she put the load into the dryer and perched atop it, the MP3 player crooning into her ears and a book in her hand.

She’d dozed off again, though, because when the dryer’s harsh buzzer sounded, she stirred from a curled up position atop the warm machine with a stiff back and a sore leg that had been hanging at an odd angle. She carried the load back to the elevator, rode it up to her floor, and went back into her apartment. Apart from Mariuska, it was as empty as it had been when she left.

She heaved a sigh of… was it disappointment? Perhaps. Part of her had hoped that Jared had returned. That was clearly not the case, though. Mari was the only one in the apartment, Mari and her stinky litterbox.

Despite the subtle perfume of detergent, Anna decided it was time to take out the trash, which had been sitting by the door since her earlier cleaning. Considerate of her neighbors, she wasn’t going to drop the cat litter down the garbage chute in the hallway, she’d take it out to the dumpster behind the building. And, perhaps she’d go to the corner store as well. She was feeling well enough for it now, and it needed to be done.

She cleaned the litter box, singing aloud to Mari as she did so, then she washed her hands. She checked her makeup and fixed what had become smeared when she dozed in the laundry room, and took some of the extra cash she kept tucked in an envelope in her underwear drawer. She had money, and now she had her apartment key, she’d just need a phone, now to contact the immigration office tomorrow and let them know she’d need a new residency card since hers had been stolen. Such a pain in the back, but it could have been far worse.

Anna donned her black wool backup coat, her favorite half balaclava with the skull face printed on it (left at home, luckily), grabbed the trash and a couple of reusable grocery bags, and with a deep breath to bolster her nerves, she left her apartment.

The first minutes outside, walking around the dark side of the building where the dumpsters were, Anna’s eyes darted about her surroundings. It was hard not to watch the shadows. But even on a Sunday night (Monday morning, technically,) it wasn’t totally quiet outside.

Some middle aged men were sitting in folding chairs with a beer cooler and a radio playing toward the end of the apartment block. One of them said something to her, but it wasn’t rude, and Anna nodded in greeting. Anna crossed onto the small commercial street with the 24-hour grocery store and the dry cleaners. A woman in a plastic hair cap walked by in slippers, pulling a ratty-looking bichon-type dog behind her and holding a cigarette in her other hand.

The sight of her smoking reminded Anna that she hadn’t had a cigarette in a few days, a first in  years. She slipped her hand into her pocket and found the crushed pack she’d had on her when she’d come home earlier. She remembered taking them out of her pants pocket before doing the laundry, but she not putting them in her coat pocket instead. Like muscle memory. No one could blame her for indulging some bad habits right now. She’d pick up a lighter while shopping.

Anna walked up and down the fluorescent-lit aisles, scanning the items without really registering them. She grabbed an inexpensive prepaid phone from the electronics aisle and moved on.

American voices spoke on the other side of the pet supplies shelf and she listened unconsciously. Tourists, it sounded like. Anna felt a brief pang of homesickness, but didn’t want to eavesdrop. She put a few cans of cat food into her basket and made her way up front.

A blotch of black and hot pink caught her eye, a couple perusing the impulse buy area by the checkout. The woman had short, neon pink hair in stiff spikes, and black-lacquered nails filed through rows of snack foods. She was smiling and talking to the heavy-set man beside her, whose long, messy black dyed hair and band tee shirt wouldn’t have been out of place in her circle of friends back home.

Anna paused at the register, chewing on the inside of her lip and warring with her reticence to draw any more attention to herself.

“You might not want that,” Anna said. Both of their eyes were on her, and then the woman looked down at the bag of crisps in her hand. “It’s anchovy flavored.”

Her pencil-thin, pierced eyebrows rose in a look of horror and the guy laughed.

“Thanks, babe, you saved my life,” she said, returning the snacksto its display. “Got any suggestions?”

Anna went over and picked something she’d like if she had an appetite, some sweet thing in a plastic pouch and stole a better look at her. There was the residue of heavy makeup around the woman’s eyes, but Anna could tell she was probably dressed down for the night, even in torn fishnets and a black pencil skirt. She was pretty, and as superficial as it was, Anna couldn’t help but be drawn to her style. She was glad she put a little extra effort in her own appearance. “You visiting too?”

“I live here,” Anna said, tugging her skull balaclava down around her neck.

“Ah, right on,” her male companion said, looking her over and running a hand through his long, messy black hair. That wrist was laden with bracelets and music festival armbands. Another pang of loneliness hit her square in the chest.

The two of them started talking amongst themselves again, the woman grabbed three more containers of the thing Anna had picked, and Anna resumed checking out. The cashier, a middle aged man who looked tired was eyeing them all.

“You three in a band or something?” he asked with a heavy Czech accent. Anna snorted and put the things she’d bought in a bag.

She nodded to them as she passed on her way to the door.

Outside, Anna took a breath and leaned against the outer front wall of the store. She wished she’d thought to talk to them more. She should have asked them about themselves, where they were from, et cetera. It wouldn’t have necessarily led anywhere, but she was so out of practice making new friends, and so surprised to see Americans her age her mind had gone blank.

She decided to have a smoke. It’d been long enough since the last one, and she wasn’t in a big hurry to get back to her empty apartment just yet. She pulled the crumpled pack out of her pocket, found a stick that wasn’t bent, and popped it into her mouth before she realized she’d forgotten to buy a lighter.

“Sugarshells,” she muttered the benign interjection, staring at a streetlight with the unlit cigarette pinched loosely between her lips. The store doors opened. The pink-coiffed woman walked through first and saw Anna. It was extremely gratifying when she smiled as if she were happy to find her again.

“Trade you a smoke for a light,” she said. Anna obliged, offering them both one. The guy, who seemed at ease staring pensively down the street, declined. The Woman accepted and pulled out a metal flip lighter. She lit her cigarette perched between her lips, then touched the cherry to Anna’s until it glowed too.

The first puff was disappointing. She didn’t get the subtle, soothing rush the nicotine usually gave her. She was puzzling over it when the woman spoke.

“I’m Cirice, that’s Rafe,” she said. The guy nodded politely from the electrical box on the street where he was writing something in black marker amidst the faded stickers and other graffiti.

“Anna,” Anna said, puffing. The second inhalation was as much of a letdown as the first. She kept up appearances anyway, glad to be doing something with her hands.

“Rafe and I had a little bet, maybe you could help settle it,” Cirice said, flashing a wild grin. “To me, you look like the type that goes clubbing every weekend. He says you probably like smaller venues. Either way, we’re trying to find things to do while we’re here.”

Rafe joined them with his hands in the pockets of his baggy black jeans, grocery bag dangling at his side.

“I don’t really get out much, actually,” Anna said with regret, breathing smoke and hoping her face didn’t turn visibly red.

“Ah shit, guess we both lose, then,” Cirice said lightly. She cocked her head at Anna and passed her boyfriend the cigarette. “What’s your deal then?”

Anna shrugged and fiddled with the ring on an earlobe. “I used to do more, before I moved here. I don’t know, I guess it’s hard to meet people in a new city.”

Cirice smoked contemplatively.

“You should come out with us,” Rafe said.

“Hey, yeah,” Cirice said, grinning broadly as smoke seeped out of her nostrils. She scrounged around in the patched and pinned bag at her side, covered in band logos, and pulled out a crumpled paper. She offered it to Anna, who straightened it out to get a better look. It was a poorly photo-copied black-and-white flyer for a club called the House of Pain. A few dates were scrawled on the bottom and the corresponding shows for those nights. Anna had an uncomfortable flashback to the club where she encountered Tobias, though that one had been called something else equally as edgy.

“We're going to hit it up this week before we fly back. It seems like it might be right up your alley. It’s sure as hell up ours,” Cirice said. “Might be better with a native to show us around.”

At least they were human.

“What do you say?” Cirice asked, slipping an arm around Rafe’s thick waist.

Anna smiled, loneliness and fear warring in her chest. She hadn’t gone out of the house for fun in so long before Jared walked her around the city.

“Maybe I will.”

“Cool. RIght on,” Rafe said, sharing the near-depleted cigarette with Cirice.

They chatted a bit more while they finished their smokes, about music mostly. Cirice was more into EDM than Anna, and Rafe liked, as she gathered from his attire, nu-metal, but there was enough common ground that Anna was able to loosen up a bit and converse with ease. No one was attacked by roving vampires, no one rolled up to mug them, it was a normal conversation with strangers that felt like they could have been friends had they a little more time.

“Maybe we’ll see you around,” Cirice said before they headed off. Anna left for her apartment feeling nearly buoyant. She wasn’t sure about that club, but if nothing else, she recognized that she needed to get out more and meet people. Thanks to Jared, Prague didn’t feel as much like a stranger as it had before.

Her apartment was fresher smelling now that the trash was taken care of, and Mariuska greeted her human vocally from her food bowl. Anna set her grocery bag on the counter and started opening a can without thinking about it. She was preoccupied with Rafe and Cirice, and the flyer she still had in hand. She wasn’t paying enough attention to what she was doing, though, and in her carelessness, sliced the pad of her thumb along the sharp edge.

She hissed at the sting, and blood welled. Going over to feed Mari one-handed, she held her bleeding thumb under the running faucet. Mariuska worked her way through her second dinner and Anna stared at her cut thumb with an uncomfortable twinge of thirst in her chest.

She gulped down a glass of water. Unsatisfied, she had a second, and then a third, until she had to stop herself, gasping for breath and clutching the edge of the kitchen sink. Her head throbbed.

\--------

**5:45 AM Monday**

Anna roused at the sound of crinkling plastic. She blinked bearily. Her headphones had fallen around her neck and tinny music filtered out. Jared was back. The sight of him filled her with relief, like his absence had left an unnatural void. She’d hoped he would take her unlocked window as an invitation, and it seemed he had.

“Hey,” she said in a soft, scratchy voice with a smile. “Did you have a good night?”

He’d taken off his boots and, she assumed, left them just inside the window. Considerate of him.

“Yeah,” he said, handing her the bag. “I got you something.”

She accepted the bag with a curious look, distracted from thinking over his evasive answer. She pulled the contents out. A pad of drawing paper and a plastic box of four pastel chalks in white, light grey, dark grey, and black. A receipt sitting in the bag told her that somehow he’d purchased the items legitimately. It was a nice touch.

Anna was overcome for a moment. Her sleep-addled brain had to catch up with the gesture, and when it did, she felt the tears well. Not again, she thought, annoyed with herself for being so emotional.

“I thought… since you left your art things behind, you might need new ones,” he said softly. ‘Art things,’ he’d said, she thought with a laugh. He looked good. Like he’d fed well. He looked happy, too. She swiped the tears away.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice wavering. “This is… so sweet. I don’t know what to say.”

“You could draw me something,” he said, sitting down on the couch next to her. Clutching the pad in hand, she turned to him and wrapped her arms around him. He was smiling and looking at her lap with downcast eyes when she pulled back.

“Maybe later, but I know just the thing,” she said, biting her lip.

“How are you?” he asked, lightly stroking the top of her hand. She didn’t feel the same annoyance in response to the question that she had before. She didn’t really know how to answer him, though. She wasn’t too eager to admit that she’d left the apartment earlier after he told her not to, even if it had resulted in a lovely and uplifting little social interaction. All things considered, hers had been a much-needed break from the rest of the world. Anything else was inconsequential. She rubbed a finger against the cut on her thumb until it throbbed a little.

“I’m good. To be frank, I’m more interested in your night. Because, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but you smell like... well, like you’ve been busy. I’m guessing you did pretty well for yourself?”

“You could say that,” he said, sniffing his coat. The sight was almost comical. “Sorry, I hadn’t noticed.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “It doesn’t bother me, it’s not like you suffer from BO like the rest of us common mortals,” she joked, and he smirked. “But-”

“But a shower wouldn’t hurt,” he finished. He slipped his fingers around her hand and squeezed. “Don’t you think?”

Anna flushed and some color came back into her cheeks.

“Sounds good. I won’t be able fall asleep this time. I mean, with you in there, too.”

Her heart fluttered at his smile. He stood up and offered her hand, and she was reminded of the way he’d waited for her on the other side of the open window over the Old Town Hall’s roof. Together they entered the bedroom with Mariuska trailing a few strides behind.

They undressed piece by piece with secretive smiles and light, stolen kisses between articles of clothing.

He was so warm. His skin burned deliciously against the chill that had been clinging to her all night, and she found it difficult to stop touching him even long enough to turn on the water. Steam billowed around them and fogged up the mirror.

She made an attempt to shower as normal, but the shower spray wasn’t big enough for the both of them, and the bathtub was as small as one would expect to find in an old, tiny apartment like hers. What might have been sexy ended up being funny as they negotiated the tight space with slippery skin, dropping things that would need to be picked up again without bumping the other person over the edge and making them spill onto the bathroom floor. She used it as an excuse to wash him and run her soapy, slippery hands over him. She took in the features that made him unique, sometimes closing her eyes to form the picture in her mind. He was made of ridges and edges, and smooth stretches of lean muscle. He was uniquely beautiful.

He was careful not to touch her bandages. She didn’t know whether it was concern for her, or because they bothered him. It didn’t matter. But he did kiss her, and touch her in return.

It was gratifying, if not surprising, when Jared started to get hard. He didn’t grope her, but he watched her with eyes reflecting the light too much to be mistaken for human. It was involuntary, but the incidental intensity of it made her short of breath.

He scraped his teeth over the bare side of her neck, and shivers shot straight down between her legs. She dropped the bottle of dandelion-scented bodywash on the floor of the bathtub (for the second time). Jared knelt down to retrieve it. Or so he indicated.

Instead, he cupped her buttocks and buried his face against the seam of her thighs. It caught her off guard and she slapped the wall for balance. Jared, whose entire body was as hot as the water itself, held her steady. He was so strong, as he proved by taking some of her weight, leaning her against the steamy wall under the showerhead.

He lapped along the outer lips of her pussy, tucked away, and she grabbed his shoulder for balance as she tried to spread her thighs. It seemed he’d been waiting for this. In one motion, he lifted her and pulled her legs over his shoulders so they dangled over his back. She was startled, and he grinned up at her under the falling water as she regained her bearings. She locked her ankles behind him.

He had her, he wasn’t going to drop her, and now he mouth had full access to her.

His mouth availed itself of her, and he wasted no time keeping to the superficial touch of the tip of his tongue. His jaw split, and the entirety of his tongue emerged. Anna watched his face, dark-veined and warping where the skin stretched, for as long as she could, but the moment the muscular organ slipped between her labia, her eyes rolled back. She grasped at the back of his head and the wall, gasping.

He didn’t push his tongue inside of her, but it slicked the entire length of her slit. Its tip frayed and unraveled, flickered against her anus and made her jump. The prehensile organ slurped back into his grasping maw.

His jaw closed enough for him to speak. “I won’t do anything you don’t want,” he said in a husky, slightly breathless voice.

“You can uhm,” Anna panted. “You can keep doing that. For now.”

 _“Good,”_ he said in Czech before burying his face against her. His tongue encompassed her, it’s separate parts working in concert between her pussy lips and cheeks to the point that she couldn’t focus on anything else.

She’d only done anal once, with her first boyfriend. Due to inexperience and her own nervousness, it hadn’t been very gratifying, just uncomfortable and painful for her. Since then, she just hadn’t been interested, and in truth, she was still reticent about the area, for all her sex-positive thinking.

Jared had no way of knowing this about her, but he was so in tune with her body’s signals and her consent that she had no doubt the same wouldn’t happen with him. He was careful. He didn’t penetrate, he licked and rubbed and surged against the tender flesh on the outside. His saliva kept her skin slippery when water alone wouldn’t have been enough, and even under the shower spray, she felt his heated breath buffeting her pubic mound as he breathed under her.

Grasping her butt, he crushed her hard against the sucking heat of his mouth, all squirming, soft, fleshy surfaces. No teeth, no spines, no barbs. The tightness in her belly grew with the prickling warmth, the tingling line down her thighs. She happened to look down, mouth working wordlessly, throat tight to stay quiet, and caught his burning white eyes peering up at her from between her legs.

She came with a gasp, inhaling some water that sent her coughing and laughing. Nomak started to put her down. The arches of her feet tingled.

“No no, not so fast,” she panted, grinning. The upper half of his face smiled back, though she couldn’t see his mouth. He closed his eyes and devoured her, delicate through her aftershocks at first, then with more vigor. He sucked at her pussy opening and groaned.

 _“So sweet,”_ he said in Czech. Anna couldn’t help it if hearing him speak Czech did something for her. It didn’t hurt that he was saying it while eating her out like he was savoring a ripe mango. She didn’t know if that would help or hinder how much of the language she absorbed, but in a moment she didn’t care as he pushed his tongue against and into her pussy.

When his eyes weren’t closed, lost in what he was doing, they were looking up at her. It was almost unnerving, the intensity of his focus. It was also what helped her reach another crest. Throwing her head back and choking off a moan, Nomak coaxed another orgasm out of her.

“I want you to cum on me,” she managed to say. His answer was a throaty growl. He slid her legs off his shoulders and helped her stand on wobbly knees. He stood in front of her, one hand rested on the wall beside her, the other grasping the base of his thick, veiny cock.

He burrowed his mouth against her neck, licking the water that cascaded down the skin, and the wet rounded tip of his cock nudged her stomach. She wrapped her arms around him as he stroked himself, the hardness of him bobbed against her stomach. She pulled him tight against her so that he pinned her.

He growled as he panted against her neck, and by the sound of it, she could tell that his maw was open. The tongue squirmed against her skin like he wanted to slide it around her neck, but every time it came near to or touched the edge of her waterproof bandage, it drew back. It troubled her, but he didn’t seem aware he was doing it.

She took his head and made him face her with all his monstrous anatomy on display, and she brought her mouth to his. His tongue slipped into her mouth, and his hips jerked.

She felt the cum jet against her skin before being washed away by the water and down the drain. He barely made a noise, but breathed heavy and swallowed.

They hadn’t been in there for that long, but she reached behind herself and turned off the water before it could go cold again. She didn’t care so much about the water bill this time.

When they’d dried each other off, a pleasant act in itself, it was close enough to dawn that Jared was visibly sleepy. Anna didn’t let him worry about her. She gave him a pair of pajama slacks and socks and sent him to bed.

She wasn’t tired yet. It was nearly morning, and after her nap earlier, she was determined to stay up longer. She needed to fix her sleep cycle, anyway.

She could see the troubled look he was trying to stifle, though, as he got into her bed alone.

“There’s something I need to do tomorrow night,” he said. Anna knew it had something to do with his personal mission, but she didn’t want to ask.

“Cool, no problem. I’ll see you later,” she said with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. Nomak looked like he wanted to say something. She waited.

“See you then,” he said. When she closed the door, she gave in to a deep sigh of relief.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> timeline: Meanwhile, Blade meets the blood pack. Strategies are discussed among Blade and Nyssa regarding the reaper threat, and where Nomak is likely to go next to acquire more for his army.  
> In my timeline, the blood pack will make a move on The House of Pain Monday night.


	11. Monday

**Time Unknown**

Anna’s eyes were open, but she didn’t see anything. So she listened.

She focused on her other senses. Her breaths sounded close in her ears, and she felt it buffet back against her own face. Wherever she was, it smelled like sawdust, wilted flowers, faded perfume, and rotting vegetation. She was laying on her back on something soft. Stiff fabric crinkled when she moved. Her mouth tasted like dirt.

Apart from her own breathing, there was no sound.

She put her hands in front of her face and met a solid barrier, perhaps six inches above her. She followed it with her hands, met a corner on either side, and walls. Close.

The air was stale. Cold dread sank into her heart when the individual pieces came together in her mind and formed the shape of the interior of a coffin.

She’d been buried alive.

She wanted to scream, but her voice didn’t penetrate the wooden box. She battered her fists against the lid and walls, kicked out. It was so close around her, so tight, she felt that she was being squeezed. She would run out of air and then-

A creak of hinges killed the scream in her throat and a flood of light blinded her.

A cold hand touched hers and squeezed. The gesture was meant to be reassuring, but it was the grip of a stone statue, lifeless and heavy.

She blinked the blurriness out of her eyes and the world overhead came into focus. Warm light, wooden paneled ceilings with ornate crown moulding. It was so familiar to her, yet she couldn't place it. Not until she looked to see whose hand touched hers.

A soft, beautiful male face, intense eyebrows and pouty lips. Jaw-length wavy hair framed his face, and cold eyes like shards of glass glinted.

Tobias sat crouched beside her with his elbows leaning on the wall of the casket.

Anna wrenched her hand away from his and scrambled into a sitting position. She was unable to tear her eyes off of him. Her heart fluttered, she felt like she couldn’t get a full breath.

“You’re dead,” Anna said. His brown locks glowed, set ablaze by the roaring hearth behind him.

His soft lips curved into a pretty smile.

“I’m not the one in a coffin,” he said. Anna looked down. She was wearing strange clothes, a white dress with stiff lace at the sleeves, feet clad in white victorian-style boots. Frantic, she searched for an exit, but as sure as she was of her location, she knew there would be none.

“I’m dreaming,” she said.

Tobias didn’t say anything, but his smile remained fixed in place. It wasn’t real, she was sure of it. But her usual dream tests didn’t allay her fears. She felt her pinches, her bit lips, tasted the blood in her mouth from her broken skin. Stunned, she stared straight ahead and fought to keep her heart from bursting out of her chest.

On a whim, she touched her neck.

Her fingertips met the crusted edge of a deep, festering wound. So deep she should have been dead from it. She tore her hand away, twisted her hands together on her lap. Tobias watched her without comment.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked, unfolding from his crouched position beside her.

Anger flashed in her breast.

“I’m not falling for that again,” she said with a sneer. Tobias chuckled as he strolled long-legged in impeccably tailored slacks to the left wall and the liquor cabinet there. Her disgust with him was sharp, and it forced her thoughts into clarity.

She didn’t want to come any nearer to him, but she didn’t want to remain where she was, either. He didn’t seem to care either way, so she made the decision for herself to stand up and step out of the wooden box on the floor.

Every detail of the room was intact. Warm light flickered on dark stained wooden panels, a painting of a hunting scene featured over the fireplace, and the vampire in the room felt as real as everything else. She watched him pour himself a drink, and though she had turned down his offer, when he faced her he held two tumblers in his long, elegant hands.

“Jared is coming for me,” she said, raising her chin. Tobias’s face blanked, eyes distant, and he drank from his glass.

“Yes, he is. He will be here soon,” he said, and relief surged hot and wild. She looked to the door, but it was closed and, she knew, locked tight. Tobias, unperturbed, continued. “But, until then, you are mine.”

Her hope trembled and then sank like a dead weight. Tobias came toward her, steel-tipped black oxfords flashing in the firelight. She didn’t look him in the eyes when he offered her a glass.

“He’ll kill you,” she said.

“He may,” Tobias said, calm. “But he will be too late.”

She took the glass from him, stepped back, and in an irrational flare, she hurled it at him. Tobias, solid as the room, solid as the cut crystal tumbler, didn’t even flinch when he was struck on the shoulder. The glass hit the sheepskin rug and liquid glistened where it soaked into his suit and dripped onto the floor.

Anna, dizzied, reached out to touch the damp front of his jacket. Her fingers came away wet and reeking of brandy. She couldn’t smell it, but she knew it was tainted with his blood.

The heat drained from her face and extremities. She stumbled back and her legs hit the arm of the leather chair.

Tobias brushed his shoulder off with a deep sigh, and she looked up and met his eyes and fear held her in place when he stepped close.

“That is very expensive. If you must act out on your petty ire, Anna, I’d prefer you do it with one of the lesser vintages.”

He bent down, picked up the glass, and set it on the coffee table. He turned toward the fire. Anna couldn’t tear her eyes off of him. What fresh hell was this? Mold and mildew curled in her nostrils, and a flash of a starlit night, a damp brick wall, teeth and tongue. She gripped the chair’s arm to steady herself.

“If you know you’re going to die, why aren’t you afraid? He’s coming for me,” she said.

Tobias peered back at her over his shoulder. His expression was grim, his eyes glittered like water at the bottom of a deep well.

“Perhaps it’s you that should be afraid,” he said.

Anna shook her head. She looked down at her dress. It was dirty and stained, more than she’d noticed at first. Her hands were shriveled, the nails overly long. She pulled back her sleeve with a trembling hand. A deep, necrotic pit had formed on her wrist, the tissue inside blackened and brown. Before her eyes it seemed to grow and spread. She thought she saw the first hint of emerging bone and covered it again, short of breath.

“He would never hurt me,” she said. Her own voice sounded distant, the room seemed to fade around the edges. She closed her eyes, she felt a slender male body crowding against her, hands grasping, lips suckling at the wound on her neck. She couldn’t breathe.

Her eyes opened, adrenaline coursed through her like a livewire, but Tobias was sitting in the chair opposite her, legs crossed.

“The time for childish delusion is past, Anna. You may try to resist, but I have the patience of nearly two centuries in my favor. You can’t escape me. I have made sure of it.”

The animal fear began to rise like acid in her gut. The wound on her neck burned, itched, but she sank her nails into the leather arm of the chair to keep herself from touching it. She shook her head again, tried to force clarity. None of this was real. She remembered Jared’s voice, calling her name, a ferocious beast out for the blood of her enemies.

The scene shifted. Arms wrapped about her waist and neck, dragged her backwards into the hidden room, Tobias’s blood-tainted breath panted against her ear. He was afraid, and because of that, she found courage.

“You’re a pile of ash, tossed out with the garbage, Tobias,” she said, and she was standing in the sitting room with her back to the hearth, facing him where he stood by the coffee table. “Piles of ash can’t talk. I survived you once, and I’ll survive you again as many times as I need to.”

His placid face transformed in her shadow to something monstrous and twisted and then settled before she could be sure it had looked that way at all. She wasn’t fooled, by him, or whatever awful, lucid dream this was.

“Brave Anna,” he said with a humorless smile. “You may think so now. But when all that you love abandons you, when you are alone in the dark in a world you no longer recognize… when the solitary truth of your own existence stretches before you like an endless shadow, a bottomless pit… I will be there.”

His hand was on her cheek, and Anna reeled, gasped, writhed, lungs burning for want of air. The terror of suffocation faded and she found herself back in the dark alley in Prague. Distant music pounded, unseen revelers laughed and talked, voices echoing off of brick walls slimy with old moisture. Red eyes peered at her from the depths of the alley.

“I’ll give you eternity, beautiful girl,” Tobias said, walking toward her and backing her against the wall. “Whether you want it or not. You will come to love me, you won’t have a choice. Soon I’ll be all you have left.”

Anna scrambled in her jacket pocket for the pepper spray, but found her cell phone instead. It vibrated with an incoming call. Anna looked. Jared’s name was on the caller ID. She flipped it open and his voice sounded distant and tinny through the speaker.

It was her lifeline. She gave Tobias a triumphant sneer and brought the phone to her ear.

 

\-----

**3:01PM**

Nomak was roused from his slumber by the sound of harsh, shallow breaths, a small body damp with sweat writhing beside him. He first looked to the clock to see that it was 3 in the afternoon, and then he looked to the source of the disturbance.

Anna lay beside him, twisted in her bed clothes. Her skin was pale as death, except around the puncture wounds on her neck. Redness seeped through the bandages and the skin around it was flushed and inflamed. He touched her forehead and found her clammy and cold.

He said her name, took her hand, squeezed her palm. His dead heart pounded in its bone cage as his mind raced for what to do. He went into her bathroom, wet a washcloth, wiped her forehead, her cheek. Her eyelids cracked open, showing a sliver of white.

She was unaware, trapped in a feverish state of unconsciousness, but her eyes moved behind her eyelids as though dreaming.

He knew what was happening. He’d seen it happen before, and the fact that she wasn’t conscious was a mercy. Perhaps the only mercy left.

He cupped her cheek, rested his palm against her heaving sternum. Her shirt was soaked in sweat, sheets stained with the sour smell of sickness. Her heart hammered a stuttering, uneven rhythm.

Nomak picked up her trembling body and brought her into the bathroom. He ran the bathwater hot and stripped her sweat-soaked clothes off. He eased her body into the steaming water, and held her head above the surface. Her spine and upper body convulsed, sending water sloshing over the edge before lessening to a tremble.

He stayed with her, spoke to her, kissed her forehead. But there was nothing he could do. He, in all his power, was helpless to the process that had already begun. Nomak held her, teeth clamped, and witnessed.

Her body offered a final, terminal shudder and the fragile mortal life beating in her chest slowed to a halt. Her last breath exited her body as a soft sigh, beautiful face falling still as an untouched pond.

He felt that his heart stopped with hers.

Anna died at 3:34PM; the time would be forever seared into his memory.

Nomak stayed with her beside the tub as the wordless hollow grew in his chest, ribs and structures caving in around it.

The water began to cool, and with it, her body.

He could hear her neighbors watching television on the other side of her bedroom wall, unaware of anything.

He drained the bath and picked up her lifeless body, cold and light in his arms. He dried her off, careful as a baby. He changed her soiled bed sheets, laid her down upon fresh ones. Clutching her limp hand to his forehead, he wept.

In all his life he could recall having cried from sadness only once before. The first time, he’d been a child, orphaned when the vampire couple that had taken him in was killed by others in a common brawl. Then, his tears had been tainted with red, as it was with all vampires with the emotional capacity to weep. Now, they were tinted yellow and had an almost oily consistency, like a leaking infection. He didn’t let his tears touch her.

He lay with her for some time, stroking her unmoving arm until her skin became ashen, lips as colorless as the rest of her. He pulled the covers over her and left her silent room, shut the door.

He paced outside the bedroom door, beside himself with helpless rage. He steadied himself until the next wave of pain washed over him and clawed his face with his hands, his entire body tense to contain the scream that threatened to escape.

Calm descended.

A muffled hiss brought his attention to the space behind the couch where the small domesticated animal huddled in abject fear. Mariuska uttered a low, keening growl and in a moment of irrational spite, he returned the gesture, flashing his mandibles to the feline as he snarled. She darted out of sight, and his rage gave way to guilt. Anna loved the cat. It was just an animal, and he didn’t blame it for being frightened. Animals knew, on some level, when something was off. Perhaps she knew her owner was dead. Or, maybe she was just afraid of him.

He sucked in a deep breath and massaged his temples. He looked at everything in her apartment, the personal touches she’d added to it. Family photos, art prints, books. His eyes fell upon the coffee table where the sketchpad sat, closed. The chalks he’d purchased for her were beside it, and faint fingerprints in smears of grey dust on the wooden surface. She’d used it at some point before giving in to her need for sleep.

Unable to stop himself, he walked over to it, ignoring the thump and the hiss emanating from under the couch. He sat down, picked up the pad, and opened the cover.

The subject or the likeness was unmistakable. A preliminary dash of shape and shadow formed a face. His face. As his eyes traced every line her hands had made, he touched his own face, mirroring the features that she’d so lovingly put to paper. It was clear what she found attractive about him. Cheekbones, sharp lines, jaw, eyes in dark pits. Monstrous features replicated by a hand that didn’t fear them.

He put the pad down just as he’d found it.

He looked toward her bedroom door, which stood ominous and silent as the gate into a mausoleum. His eyes were dry, and his skin tingled. It was an unnatural hour for him to be awake, but he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he made sure certain matters were taken care of.

It took almost an hour of coaxing, first with sweet words and then with food, to get Mariuska to creep out from behind the couch. He could have simply grabbed it, but the absolute worst thing he could have done was cause its little heart to burst from fear. Anna loved the creature, and that was all that mattered. He sat, still as a stone, beside the bowl with the heap of pungent wet food. It seemed it was too tempting for her to resist. As soon as Mariuska was within range, he gripped her by the nape of her neck.

She clawed and hissed and thrashed, and he did what he could to prevent her from hurting herself, taking more than a few hits himself in the process. Then he mustered some affection, perhaps channeled Anna, as he sat crouched with her balanced on his knees. He petted her gently and told her what a good animal she was, so fluffy and fat and… good. It didn’t matter what he said, he might as well have insulted it in a pleasant voice, but the act would have been petty and pointless.

He pulled up his hood, grabbed a stack of cans from the cupboard, and left Anna’s apartment with the cat in his arms.

He knocked on the door across the hall.

When the old woman answered, Nomak bowed his head to hide his features as well as he could. By the cloudiness of the diminutive women’s eyes, unaugmented by spectacles, he rested assured she couldn’t see how inhuman he looked. She looked first to the cat, then to him.

Jared spoke to her in Czech. “Anna is unwell. Please take care of her cat.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, squinting to see under his hood, and Nomak bowed his head further. Indirect sunlight streamed through the windows in her apartment and he fought the instinctive panic that told him to seek the safety of darkness.

“What’s wrong with her?” Sofie asked in clipped Czech, her lips pursed shrewdly. Arthritic knuckles fidgeted with her faded nightgown, pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders. The cat’s ears were totally flat, pupils wide, and he could feel its heart humming hard in its chest. He feared for its health.

“She is unwell,” Nomak repeated. Every second that he stood in the open, the anxiety built, but human interaction couldn’t be rushed. Suspicion sank into every fine wrinkle in the rounded aged face, but she reached for the cat. Mariuska, sensing freedom, leaped from Nomak’s hold past Sofie’s outstretched arms and darted, a white blur, into the neighbor’s apartment. Nomak handed Sofie the cans instead, and she took them. She was too distracted trying to balance them to see him step just a little farther out of the direct line of her door, away from the warm glow of day.

“You’re him, aren’t you? Her unemployed boyfriend.” Nomak didn’t know what to say to that, but it was clear that Sofie’s degraded sight hadn’t affected her mind. She deposited the cans just inside of her door on an antique table. “And just how old are you, exactly?”

She started feeling around for the pair of spectacles sitting folded in a ceramic dish. Nomak didn’t have time for this.

“I’m taking care of her. She needs rest,” he said, keeping his head down. Sofie gave up the search for her glasses and her eyes went across the hall to Anna’s apartment door. She huffed a breath of irritation.

“I will take care of the cat, now. But you and I will talk later.” It was neither a request nor a question. Nomak nodded, ready to agree to anything at that point. As a belated gesture, remembered to thank her.

Sofie didn’t answer. She also didn’t move from her open door. Nomak retreated from her withering stare across the hall. He went inside Anna’s apartment and locked the door behind him. Seconds later, he heard Sofie’s door close as well.

In his anxiety, he wondered if the old woman somehow knew what he was. It was an absurd notion. Her suspicion was born out of concern for Anna, and despite being the subject of it, he was grateful that she had such compassion for her.

And now the cat was taken care of. He returned to the bedroom and found Anna just as he’d left her. He didn’t realize until the sick relief hit him that he’d been afraid she might have turned already.

If he hadn’t known better, he might assume that she was truly dead. But the blood in her body hadn’t settled. His senses, fine tuned to detect the qualities of vampire blood that he needed to survive, were telling him now what they’d been useless to communicate before: Anna was beginning to transform.

Outwardly, she looked the same. Beneath the surface, though, his ears could hear the wet, muffled sounds of the shifting of organs and internal structures occurring beneath her skin. Disgust and anger curdled in his stomach, and at that moment he wished more than anything that he hadn’t destroyed the one who’d done it to her. He would give nearly anything to be able to kill him again, draw it out longer this time. Perhaps turn  _ him _ into a slave, subject to Anna’s vengeful whims.

It was a sick thought, quickly dismissed. Anna wasn’t like him, she would gain no pleasure from seeing her attacker’s face, even if it answered to Nomak’s will.

Anna was kind, undeserving of her fate. And as of now, she was alone. Except for him.

A poor companion, to be sure. But he was the only one she had. And when she returned to consciousness, he would be there for her. He would help her however he could, give her some form of guidance. All the while, he would fight the fact that her continued existence was a hollow comfort to him.

He went to her side and touched her smooth cheek. Then he reached back over his shoulder, probed for the spongy mass of tissue that produced his pheromones, and scented her with it, dabbing it over pulse points. The message it carried was simple, unmistakable: non-prey. He told himself it wasn’t for him, but for his brood. Anna would be protected for as long as the smell lasted.

His greatest fear, though, what frightened him more than his own death, was that he would look into her eyes when she woke, and see his enemy staring back at him.

 

\-----

**6:20PM**

Anna opened her eyes and at the sight of her own bedroom, she breathed a sigh of relief. Or, she would have had her lungs not been empty. Her senses confused her. Everything was sharp, the contrast turned up. Noise rattled in her brain, her nerves tingled like static. She was paralyzed.

Panic.

She tried to move, and then she did move. Just as soon as she’d considered it, Anna was sitting up in her bed. 

She pulled air into her lungs for the first time since she’d returned to the waking world. Minutes had passed since then, she should have felt the need more urgently.

The sound of air on curtains made her look to her window.

Jared sat there on the windowsill, watching her. With her lungs filled with the room’s air, she could taste him or rather… the absence of him. Unlike everything else in that room, the carpet, the compressed particle board dresser, the urine-tinted sheets balled up in the corner, Jared didn’t seem to have a smell.

Sounds leaked through the open window at his back and her attention was on it. Rubber tires rolling over concrete, wind shaping the obstacles of the landscape, and beyond that distant water and boats cutting through waves. It was all so sharp, so loud, she couldn’t think.

She forgot to breathe again, and as she inhaled, aware that her body hadn’t driven her to do it, horror weighed her down. Her brain caught up, sorted the jumbled mess of sensory input, memory, and fragments of a nightmare into a cognizant thought, and came back to the realization that she didn’t  _ need  _ to breathe.

“Oh, fuck,” she said. Jared opened his mouth to speak, she heard it rather than saw, and she silenced him with a hand. “Ohhhhh….  _ Fuck _ . Fuck me. Fucking…” the last ‘fuck’ came out in a choked gasp, because she needed to fill her lungs again to speak. She kept mouthing the epithet anyway as her hands rose to her face. Her fingers pushed against her ears to block out the incessant noise.

Anna inhaled again, and the next breath out started as a whimper that rose into a wail. Jared was on the bed next to her, his hands on her arms, and he said her name over and over. His hands were in her hair, his arms wrapped around her upper body and squeezed her into a hug. He rocked her, and she got control of her voice long enough to cry. She cried until her breath had depleted again, and then she did it silently, burying her face against his chest as he held her shuddering body to him.

Some time passed like this.

Jared didn’t let go of her, and he continued speaking to her in low tones, though nothing he said stuck, and she was sure he wasn’t even speaking a human language. She was overcome by alternating waves of horror and numbness. She was self-aware enough to keep her lungs empty of air so that her screams wouldn’t alert the neighbors. Through it, his body was strong and solid, and physically felt like the only thing that held her together.

The return to rationality was slow, but it did happen. Her thoughts raced in a dozen directions, always to return to one central fact. She’d failed to fight off the poison in her blood, and she had succumbed to it.

Even now she felt it changing. Inert, yet shifting. The body she occupied was familiar, but it wasn’t the same body she’d gone to sleep with. She looked at her wrist and peeled the bandage from her wound. Jared, who’d loosened his hold on her as she looked, turned away. Two neat little dents in her skin were all that was left of what had been inflamed, open sores. She touched her neck. Her expectation to find a deep, rotten wound was met with a smooth expanse of skin, only interrupted by similar scars.

“Okay, then,” she said, forcing herself to calm down and stop acting like a panicky animal. “Okay, so this happened.” She breathed and concentrated on doing that until she didn’t have to think about it so deliberately. “Wow, alright.”

She started picking at a spot on her sheet as her mind raced. Her eyes, sharper than even her 20/20 vision, fixed on a place on the wall by the door. When next she spoke, she was able to keep her volume low, her words even.

“I hoped I was getting better. I honestly thought there was a chance. You tried to tell me, Jared, but I didn’t listen,” she said with a half-hearted chuckle. Breathe, in, out.

“Anna,” Jared said, quietly but so loud.

“It’s okay. I mean… this happens all the time, right? People turn into vampires, life goes on, so to speak. I always was a night owl, anyway. This just the way things are, now. There’s no point in freaking out about it.” Anna nodded, feeling good about this direction of her thoughts. “Maybe it won’t be so bad, you know? It’s pretty interesting, actually. I should document everything I’m feeling right now. Were you here when it happened? Did you see me change? What was it like?”

She glanced over to a mute Jared, who watched her hand fidgeting and plucking at the sheet.

“No wait, nevermind. I don’t want to know. Of course I don’t want to know it’s so… fucked up.” Her chest tightened with another wave of horror rolled over her, but this time it subsided quicker. Bad language helped. “This is so fucked, man. Soooo fucked up.”

“Anna,” Jared said again, but her mind jumped around so much, and so quickly, she almost didn’t hear him.

“I guess I have a lot of time now. As if I didn’t before. I could take night classes, become a nurse like I wanted, work the graveyard shift,” she said with a manic giggle. It was good to have a sense of humor about it, she figured. Healthy. “Ironic, a vampire healthcare worker. But like… a nice one. Not like the ones at Parizska.”

Her mention of the blood bank made fragmented memories of a dream come to her. She sat in silence, lost in concrete corridors with the cold eyes of cameras following her. No one to help her.

“Anna!” Jared said, clamping a hand around her wrist. Anna came out of it, dizzied, and looked from him to her hand. She’d picked her way clean through the sheet, shredding a ragged hole, and into the mattress beneath. Little bits of foam were piled around the pit her hand had made. Oops.

“I am completely, utterly unequipped to deal with this,” she said to him calmly.

Jared’s white fire eyes pierced her from the depths of his dark sockets, almost mesmerizing, and he leaned in and pressed his forehead to hers. He took a shuddering breath before pulling away.

“It is going to be okay,” he said, and she nodded, willing to accept that. “You’re still in there somewhere, Anna. You just need to find yourself.”

She laughed and gave him an incredulous look.

“What are you talking about? I  _ am _ me. I might be… this, but I’m still me.”

Jared didn’t say anything, but she noticed how he avoided looking at her before nodding.

“You’re right, yes. You’re still Anna. Just hold onto that.” His brow tightened and he closed his eyes. “Use what you know of yourself to… guide you.”

“What do you mean? Seriously, dude, you’re making me super nervous.”

He let go of her arm and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Sorry, I’m… really terrible at this.”

“At what?”

Jared ran his hands back over his scalp, rubbed his face. He looked tired, more so than usual. He probably needed to feed, she thought. As soon as it occurred to her, she made the connection that what he needed, she now contained in abundance. Vampire blood.

“I’m a bad teacher,” he said, standing and turning to the open window, and as subtle air currents passed him, she was struck by the fact that Jared somehow occupied a total scent void. She imagined that was how he hunted, by escaping detection. She wondered if her smell bothered him or, in a dreadful thought, made him hungry.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said, keeping the tremor from reaching her voice. “Please, try.”

Jared looked out at the nighttime landscape past her fire escape, his stature bowed slightly. He nodded to himself.

“I will tell you what I know. I wasn’t turned, but basic facts are the same.”

Anna scooted to the edge of the bed and noticed that he’d dressed her in a clean tee shirt. She smelled bathwater and damp clothes, coming from a sweaty sodden pile in the bathroom. He’d given her a bath? The smell of sweat and urine was stale, but a cool October breeze wafted in from outside and cleared the air. She might have been embarrassed of her body’s apparent final functions, but that body was no longer hers. It had happened to someone else.

“The thirst will come. It’s bearable, at first. You might think that you can ignore it, perhaps even that it won’t affect you. But the longer you go without feeding, the more it will grow.” Nomak fell silent. “Until it consumes you. You must never let it reach that point. Do you understand?”

He turned to look her in the eye and she was startled by the intensity of his unblinking gaze. She nodded.

“However you can… you need to master it, or it will master you.”

“I got it,” she said, irritated with the sharpness of his tone.

“I’m serious, Anna. You won’t be able to control yourself. You may harm… those who don’t deserve it. Perhaps even people you love.”

She dropped her eyes and swallowed. His words didn’t comfort her, but they steadied her. She’d never seen him this way before, not with her. She wondered if things would ever be like they were between them, and with a bitter frown she considered that it wouldn’t, couldn’t be like it was.

“Got it,” she said without sarcasm this time. Jared’s chiseled jaw tensed and worked, and his throat bobbed. She heard him swallow dryly.

“But... you don’t have to hurt  _ anyone _ , if you don’t want to,” he said, looking down at his hands. “It is possible for vampires to survive on animal blood. It... won’t taste as good, nor will the effects last so long, but I’ve known of a few vampires in my time that chose to live in such a way. Isolate themselves from humans and live in the wild parts of the world.”

Anna snorted, she couldn’t help it. It was absurd, he couldn’t be serious.

“I can’t just… flee to the northern forests, eating squirrels or whatever for the rest of my life, Jared. I have a life. Plans. A  _ family _ , for chrissakes. My dad-”

“He can never know,” Jared interrupted his voice harsh enough that Anna’s mouth closed. Protests withered at the tip of her tongue. “If you love him, you will stay as far from him as you can, for the rest of his natural life.”

Anna’s eyes burned and an angry tear rolled down her cheek.

“How can you say that?” she asked, her voice breaking. “You don’t know how I feel, Nomak, you’ve never had a family like I do. You have no idea what it would mean to lose him. What losing me would do to him.”

As soon as she said it, she regretted it. She had no way of knowing Jared’s life, the sorrows he’d known. He closed his eyes and ran his hands over his face. When he looked at her again, they were bloodshot, and his hairless brow furrowed in pain. But, she swallowed her apology, and her guilt.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I… I don’t want to say these things, but I need to. You have to know what it’s like. What’s ahead of you.”

Anna nodded, chewing on her lip. Her teeth felt normal, but her gums itched. She ran her tongue over them. He was trying to help her the only way that he knew how, with the truth. And while she might have liked to be coddled, she knew that what he was telling her was important. Even if she didn’t fully believe it. Leave her old life behind, just like that?

He was so tense, and the way he seemed to distance himself from her couldn’t be ignored anymore.

“Do you…” she started, trailed off. She tried again. “Do I make you hungry?”

“No,” he answered immediately. Anna breathed. “And you have nothing to fear from my brood, either.”

Anna nodded, and though she believed he meant it, she couldn’t help the minute, nagging doubt in the back of her mind. She absently shoveled the shreds of foam mattress back into the hole, but the damage was done.

“So… what now?”

“Now... you don’t think about things you can’t control,” he said simply. “You should stay inside tonight... and I do mean it.”

Anna dropped her eyes, ashamed that he knew she’d left the night before against his wishes. She didn’t regret it, though. It had been her last night on earth, so to speak. She was glad she’d gotten some fresh air, even if just to go on a grocery run. She’d met Cirice, and Rafe, a positive experience overall.

“Mariuska… she might be scared.”

He came to her side of her bed, and offered her best attempt at a smile. Even tinged with undisguisable worry, it softened his features.

“I’ve left your cat with your neighbor, you don’t need to think about her tonight.”

Anna laughed, surprised.

“Mari let you pick her up? She must be getting used to you. What did Miss Sofie think of you?”

Nomak smirked.

“She’s terrifying when she wants to be. And she’s very protective of you.”

Anna grinned, even if the motivation behind Nomak’s decision to take the cat out of the apartment made her uncomfortable. With all his talk of feeding on animal blood, Anna was happier knowing that Mari was safe elsewhere, at least until she got a better handle on things. She sighed, getting accustomed to breathing normally. In, out.

Jared offered her his hand, and even though moving seemed to take less than no effort, she accepted and let him lead her into the living room. She could tell that Jared had looked at her drawing of him, though he had tried to hide the evidence. It wasn’t a great rendition, but she was rusty.

He sat her on the couch. He wrapped her blanket, warm from sitting next to the radiator, around her shoulders, picked up her laptop and handed it to her. Though he seemed to be avoiding touching her more than necessary, he was trying his very best to comfort her. It was working.

“Can you wait right here? I need to do something,” he said, glancing toward the bedroom.

“Are you going out to hunt?” she asked, remembering his talk of his plans for the night. Jared dropped his gaze and shoved his hands in the pocket of his hoodie.

“Not yet. I just need to leave for a moment, but I’ll be right outside. Don’t… go anywhere.”

Anna turned toward her laptop. Every pixel on the screen blazed, red, green, blue, an array of colored lights that formed an image and she closed her eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right here,” she said.

He attempted a reassuring smile, gave up halfway through, and disappeared into the bedroom. Moments later, the sound of fabric rustling gave way to footsteps on metal, and silence. Anna remembered to breathe. The electronic screen hurt her eyes, even with the brightness turned all the way down, but she muscled through it to pull up her music player. She put something on, skipped to another track, paused it, then decided that music was better than every other sound that wanted to bombard her ears without reprieve.

She wasn’t imagining it, her senses were sharper. Almost painfully so. But… all things considered, she felt pretty good. It wasn’t so bad, existential dread notwithstanding. But without Jared there, she had difficulty wrangling her thoughts. Questions hit her in waves, then spawned others which branched and multiplied. She decided to channel them into a text document.

Her fingers touched the keys, normally at first. But as with her sight, she found herself no longer confined to the physical limits of her mortal body. The steady click-click of the keys came faster and turned into rapid vibrations, and her hands were a blur. She typed so fast that she outpaced the word processor. She stopped, and as she watched the computer catch up she didn’t know why it horrified her so.

She set aside her computer and got up. She walked into the bedroom and peered out the window. The sounds, which had been overwhelming before, became even more so when she poked her head out, and now they bombarded her from every direction. Movement drew her eye to the empty street in front of the apartment. She spotted Jared crouched low in the middle of the road. She was puzzled, at first, until she noticed the manhole cover he’d pushed aside.

She watched, curious, as he apparently communed with whatever lurked in the darkness under the street. She was pretty sure she knew what it was.

Jared turned and peered over his shoulder, then up at her, as if somehow he’d sensed her watching him. Anna blanched and ducked back into her room, wringing her hands and pacing. She returned to the living room and to the music playing over her tinny laptop speakers. She picked up her drawing pad and flipped to a new page, and began to draw with the charcoals.

Unlike her experience with the computer, she found the manual, analog nature of the act comforting. Whatever her words-per-minute rating was now, she was still just as out of practice when it came to art. Her hand needed to move a certain way, apply a certain pressure, and move at a certain speed in order to make the marks she wanted. That, at least, was the same. She ran her tongue over her itching gums and drew.

Jared returned before long, as promised, and came in through the bedroom doorway.

“And how are the kids?” she asked with a smile, working on the next piece. It was supposed to be a cat, but she’d never been good at animals.

“They’re fine. I sent them to hunt. I think I’m getting used to them, how to control them.” He strolled over, hands in pockets and peered at what she was doing. “That is a nice… duck.”

Anna paused and held the drawing at arm’s length, turned it sideways. It did kind of look like a duck. She snickered when she saw Jared’s nonplussed smile. “I’m sorry, is that not what it is?”

Anna laughed and shrugged. “It... doesn’t matter. It feels good to make art again. It feels… normal. I guess I have all the time in the world to work on my skills, now.”

Jared watched her set the pad down.

“If you wanted to, I suppose you could.”

Her mood sobered and she sat back, staring at nothing in particular. The blanket had lost its warmth, and her own body wouldn’t be generating any more to replace it. Not unless she fed. Jared’s stance became awkward, and he didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. Anna scooted over and patted the couch cushion beside her. After a brief hesitation, he sat beside her, careful to remain apart. It called to mind the first time she’d brought him to her apartment, and their mutual unwillingness to address their shared attraction to one another.

“This would have happened anyway, you know,” she said, glancing toward him. He sat stiff-backed, the line of his jaw tight with internalized discomfort. “Whether I’d met you or not, Tobias was going to turn me. It was just a matter of when. All things considered, this is probably the best way things could have played out.”

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

“You think?” He sounded doubtful, but too polite to say it. Anna shrugged and looked at her hands knotting in the blanket.

“I mean… what if I hadn’t met you until after?” she asked. She let the question hang in the air, the unspoken question that had loomed. It was out in the open, now. Jared nodded and leaned forward, resting his chin on his knuckles. It was such a human gesture, and it made her realize that Jared didn’t know the answers to these things any more than she did. Whether that was a comfort or not was undecided.

“Honestly, it might have been better,” she said with a light shrug. “Who knows what I might have become with no one but Tobias to show me the ropes.”

“Don’t say that,” he said, scarcely above a whisper. “Please, don’t.”

Anna chewed on her lip and swallowed the lump of despair threatening to rise in her throat.

“I’m just being realistic. Surely it’s occurred to you, too. Let’s face it… you can’t fight your nature any more than I can.”

“We can’t fight our natures,” he said slowly. “But we can choose how to live with them. We can still decide who we want to be. And…” he trailed off, rubbed the back of his neck with a dark-veined hand. “We can shape the world we live in. For you, perhaps more than before.”

Anna took this in as rationally as she could. A car drove by the street, bass bleeding into the ground and walls. Her neighbors laughed at a sitcom on TV. If she listened hard enough, she could even hear Miss Sofie across the hall, fixing her dinner. It was all so surreal, like the life continuing around her existed behind glass. Near, but separate.

“You said it yourself. My life is basically over. Anna’s gone, there’s just me, now. Whatever I am.” She met his eyes. Something had lightened in his expression, and he didn’t avoid her gaze. He reached over and took her hand, surprising her, and squeezed.

“Anna Townsend... was kind,” he began in measured, even words. “She was clever, and humble. She was brave, and good. She liked to help people. She was willing to endanger herself to help someone she didn’t know. She was wise beyond her years but… she still somehow had hope.”

“You should write my eulogy,” she said with an ironic grin. Jared dropped his eyes, and shrugged, bashful all of a sudden.

“It’s the truth. You were all of those things, but you were also mortal. You were limited by time, and fragility… what I’m trying to say is…” he cleared his throat and pulled her hand onto his lap, stroking the palm. “You can honor the Anna Townsend you were by continuing in her memory. Take what made her unique, and keep it close to you. Protect it. Embody it. If you do… you could do more than she ever could have, in her lifetime.”

Jared’s eloquence set her off balance. Speaking of her in such a manner, past-tense, drove home the gravity and reality of her situation. But… his words did give her some hope. And, current emotional upheaval aside, the way his careful touch sent tingles down her arm was pleasantly distracting. Anna slid closer to him on the couch, taking refuge in the fact that she couldn’t smell him, except for the scent of his clothes.

She leaned against him and didn’t notice how stiff he was until he stood up, put his hands in his hoodie pockets and looked away.

“I… I need to…” he stuttered. “I’ll be right back.”

Anna watched, nonplussed, as he made a quick exit through her bedroom window by the sound of it. She couldn’t help but feel a bit snubbed, but she wouldn’t let herself take it personally. He was troubled about what had happened to her in his own way, and wasn’t used to expressing his feelings, even if he was fairly good at it. Anna was grateful to him for trying, even if she could feel her heart breaking in her chest over how much it seemed to pain him to be near her.

She stood in the bedroom doorway, looking out into the night, waiting. Jared’s shape, a blur, appeared on the fire escape with next to no noise. He had something in one hand, and when his swift shape came into focus, his other was wiping his mouth. He smelled like blood when he ducked and eased over the window frame.

She didn’t know how, but she knew he’d just fed. And she didn’t know why, but that realization hit her like a weight on her chest. He met her eyes, then looked away. What he held in his hand was a blood pack, and without touching it she knew it was still lukewarm. Anna turned and re-entered the living room. She sat down, her face hard, as he followed behind her.

“Is it human?” she asked. Jared nodded.

“Donated. No one was harmed.”

“But you said…”

“The first time,” he cut in, cleared his throat. “The first time, it has to be human blood.”

“You neglected to mention that,” she said, trying her best not to sound as annoyed as she felt. Jared didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. The blood sloshed in the plastic bag, and finally he came over and put it on the table. Anna stared at it, her eyes burning with deep-set loathing.

“I didn’t want you to worry. I took care of it for you. Had my brood… take care of it for you.”

“Thanks,” she said in a flat voice. She made no move to pick it up. She could smell it, the salty iron tang of it permeated the room. Her gums itched, and when she tongued the area, the tissue around her canines felt inflamed and sore. “Could you… put it in the fridge? I’m just going to save it for later.”

Jared picked up the pouch and did as she asked without a word until he closed the fridge door.

“I’m sorry-” he started.

“It’s fine,” she interrupted. “Really, it is. Thank you, for doing that. For helping me, Jared. Without you, I don’t know what I would have done. I’m feeling a bit better, honest.”

He crossed the room and surprised her by standing in front of her, and kneeling. He took her hand in his and looked into her eyes. His skin felt warmer than it had earlier, his eyes less bloodshot. If he’d needed to feed before he could touch her, she owed her thanks to whatever bloodsucker had given its life to make it possible. More than anything, she longed for physical contact, something real and tangible to focus on when her senses got too overwhelming.

“It will get better, Anna,” he said, unwavering in his gentle gaze and grip. “I promise you, it will.”

She nodded and sniffled, swiped at the tear before it could get to her chin.

“I know you need to go tonight, and it’s a good thing. You should do what you set out to do, get back at the ones that did this to you. To… us. But maybe, until then… can you just stay with me?” she asked. Embarrassment made her sound small. She felt like a child asking to stay in her parents’ bed during a thunderstorm. She wiped at her eyes, avoided looking at the red-tint of the wetness staining her knuckles. Jared nodded.

“Of course.” This time when he joined her on the couch, he didn’t shy away from her touch. He raised his arm and let her snuggle underneath it. She breathed a sigh of relief as the pounding tympany of her own thoughts faded. He kissed the top of her forehead.

Try as she might, though, the heavy scent of the fresh blood cooling in the fridge didn’t completely leave her mind.

“This fucking sucks,” she said, not caring how whiny she sounded. Jared’s warm breath sank into her scalp. He nodded.

“Yeah, it totally does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :( sorry for the angst!  
> The next chapter will take place later this day/night. I will update it as soon as I can. Thanks for your patience, and thank you to everyone who's left a kudos, a comment, or even just a pageview. You're lovely and I love you.


	12. The First Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anna faces her first night as a vampire. Jared meets his destiny. Minor characters plot grand schemes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one jumps around POVs a bit. I hope I made it clear. Thanks to those who are persistently interested to see where this story ends up.  
> This chapter takes place before, during, and after the House of Pain mission.

**Monday Evening, October 22nd, Damaskinos Headquarters**

Karel Kounen found the numbers very concerning. More complaints trickled in by the hour, reports from Prague’s vampire elite and lesser officials within Damaskinos’s house.

Familiars, going missing by the dozens. It was not only an inconvenience to their masters and a direct act of aggression against those to whom they’d pledged their fealty and very souls, but a matter of great trepidation for Karel.

He’d be safe behind the Overlord’s fortress walls, so he wasn’t necessarily worried for himself, but there was a common theme that was disquieting: the disappearances happened only under the cover of darkness, and not one person, vampire or otherwise, could give an accurate description of what happened to the victims.

A few suspected hunters -there was much talk of Blade’s recent presence in Prague, which might tend to make even old, respected vampires, shit themselves in abject terror.

Mirak Karkov, steward of the Karkov Barony and territory west of the river, had lost track of a dozen Familiars over the last two nights, more than any other. Karel had his own team scouring the human news reports, hospital lines, and police channels for an uptick in similar reports of regular civilians going missing, but so far nothing seemed out of the ordinary for a city like Prague.

Another email arrived with updated information. Karel’s informants reported that Turned were going missing as well. The Turned were a nuisance for the most part; rabble, which occupied the lowest rungs of vampire society, crowding in on the food supply and polluting it with illegal drug rackets and reckless turned offspring, each generation less pure than the last.

The concerns of the lower classes were no concern to more important figures in the Nation, so one gave half a shit when a Turned got ashed by a slayer or another vampire.

For whatever reason, or no reason at all. So, when Karel did start hearing about Turned disappearances, he knew it was a more serious matter.

He saw the connections and made the conclusions, and Eli did too. The Reapers’ rapid spread wasn’t indiscriminate.

There was an intelligent pattern behind the disappearances. Turned vampires and marked familiars. Not a single unwitting human had been harmed in Parizska. It meant that Nomak wasn’t the animal they thought he was.

There was that _other_ factor, the one that Karel had been keeping to himself. A minor sub-territory in South Prague’s District 5 had been hit the hardest. It wouldn’t have mattered but for the address on the laminated legal residency ID card, which he now held in his hand.

The grainy official photo showed a young woman with pleasing, if unremarkable, features, and dark, open eyes.

It was possible that the blood bank director’s mortal plaything was meant instead to be a snack for patient zero, but Karel suspected something far more incredible. What if Nomak, the pestilent plague rat, the monstrous failed science experiment, didn’t intend to harm her at all?

Were reapers capable of love? Karel was neither capable of the emotion nor interested in its confounding effects, but the thought made him chuckle with dark humor as he watched the evidence of Nomak’s sentience play on on his security feeds and in his ear feed.

_“... makes three familiars missing in 4 as of…”_

He’d been listening all night, and day, and already knew his plans for the evening.

Karel, for one, would have liked to know what was so special about this woman, but the scout he sent to investigate the address listed on her ID card had missed his hourly check-in.

The silence told him everything he needed to know.

 

\--------

**2:33 AM Tuesday Morning, District 5, Prague**

“Just be careful, Anna, I know how you are,” her dad’s canned voice said in her ear. The call quality wasn’t great, but consistent, despite the distance. “Remember Toccoa Falls?”

“I was fifteen, Dad,” Anna said with a good-natured sigh, forgetting her train of thought again as she reverted to her usual conversation style. “I wasn’t _trying_ to piss off a goshawk, I just saw the baby birds and-”

“Fell ten feet and broke your ankle. Your mom had to splint it while we waited for the ranger,” her dad laughed, and Anna did, too. She was absently pacing again, doing slow circuits around the coffee table, before moving over to the kitchen and walking the length of the tile floor section.

“She was really good at making you laugh. Even if your ankle was bruised and swollen the size of a softball,” Anna said with a smile.

The smell of blood in the fridge sent her back into the bedroom. Where Nomak was giving her the space she needed. But his presence was a dark reminder of the purpose of the call. It was a comfort to know that he’d be there after it was over, too.

“So what are you doing this weekend?” she asked, trying not to chew up her lip, but it was too easy with the way her canines had begun to change. She wasn’t sure whether it was nervousness, or the need to prove that what was happening was real that made her do it.

“Oh, Elena and I are going to the farmer’s market,” he said in an offhand not-a-big-deal-but-actually-it-is sort of way. “She started a cooking class and needs a test subject for her experiments.”

Anna smirked and mouthed ‘Elena’ over to Jared, who sat perched on the end of the bed. His marbled face seemed to lighten in the dim bedroom, though his neutral, soft-eyed expression didn’t change.

“Free food for you, too, huh?” she said, though her own expression didn’t match her glib tone of voice. He chuckled.

“Doesn’t hurt,” he said. For a moment, she thought he was about to say something, it seemed, about her mom. “Anyway, I’ve gotta go, sugar bear. Plumber’s here and you know how those guys-“

“I love you, Dad,” Anna interrupted almost forcefully. He was taken aback for a moment, judging by the silence on the other end of the line. “I just… want you to know that.”

“Love you too, kiddo,” he said, a little thicker. The suppressed emotion in his voice made her guts twist, or maybe it was the blood bag’s cloying scent in the back of her nose. “Be safe hiking out there, alright? Be sure to check in so someone knows where you are.”

“I will.”

“And bring extra socks.”

“I’m going to-“

“And don’t go messing with any nests.”

“Dad-” she said, laughing and trying not to cry.

“I mean it. Your mom and I didn’t raise _any_ old fool. She was always proud of your independence. It used to scare the heck out of me. But you’re so much like her, you know. Nothing shakes you. Trust your instincts, keep light on your feet out there. And maybe, if this thing works out with you and this… what’s his name? Jeremy?”

“Jared,” she said, looking at the man sitting on the edge of the bed, so familiar yet so out of place in a normal context like her apartment, while she was on the phone with her dad.

“Yeah, well I’d like to meet him. Maybe when I’m on your side of the Baltics in Spring. I’ve been saving my dimes.”

Anna felt her tenuous control begin to slip.

“Yeah, maybe.”

The tapering off of the conversation was just like any other before it, but the one-sided finality of it was difficult for her, knowing that this would be the last time she planned to speak to him. She held onto every final word, and wished she could reach through the phone line and give him a hug. If nothing else, the choice to call instead of email him had been the wiser, if more difficult option.

The good-bye was more of a “call me when you get back,” but she knew better. She wondered, as she ended the call and watched his name and number go dark with the screen, if he’d suspected anything.

Or if it would hit him out of the blue when she disappeared, and her body was never found.

Anna couldn’t move for a long moment, and when Jared stood from the bed with the muted squeak of springs, she figured she must have looked dreadful. She remembered to smooth her expression into neutrality before she looked him in the eyes again, but didn’t turn away his offered hug, his grip tight enough to hold her together as the grief welled inside of her breast, either for herself or her father who would have to deal with this for many years to come, and it was boiling like a storm drain near to overflowing.

But the tears didn’t come. Not like they might have before. The pain in her chest stayed rooted there, like it was blocked. He stroked her hair, and she reminded her body to take one unnecessary breath after another until the worst passed.

It was a wonder to her, once she was calm enough to appreciate it, how quickly she seemed to be able to recover from emotional blows.

His body was solid, but it troubled her how she couldn’t smell him. She could smell the blood, though. And as the night wore on, Anna realized that nothing but blood would help.

There was no fixing this.

“You should feed,” he murmured the cold words into her scalp, as if he’d pulled them from her brain. The vibrations of his voice sent shivers down her neck, but the words themselves struck a bad note. Feed, like an animal or some other mindless force of consumption.

“I will,” she said with a sigh.

She heard him inhale, and when she considered that he was taking in her scent, not like before as a besotted suitor, but as he might when confronted with his preferred prey, she closed her eyes and surrendered to him. She trusted his word. She needed to, in order to find any comfort in him now. The only comfort, perhaps.

She nuzzled against the zippered front of his hooded jacket, trying again and failing to smell something of him that hadn’t been acquired.

“You have work to do tonight,” she said, looking at her clock. 3:20 AM. Where had the night gone?

“I will,” he said, in almost the same reluctant tone she had. And then, with an almost imperceptible turn of his head toward her bedroom window, said, “but I don’t have to leave just yet.”

Anna thought of waking up next to him, how pleasant and uncomplicated a thing it was to share a sleeping space with someone, to see their face first thing and forget for a moment that anything existed outside of them. What was the point in prolonging this departure if the comforts it offered were hollow? She’d lost her father, now, and her mother both.

The only one who knew she existed in her current state, was him.

“Don’t stay on account of me,” she said, keeping it light-hearted.

“I want to stay, too,” he admitted, fidgeting with his fingers. “If things were different… if there were more time-”

“There are a few dozen human sayings to address ‘what-ifs’ but I don’t feel like coming up with one. But I learned not to think about how someone’s life diverges at critical points. Like… alternate realities.” She laughed. “It sounds like sci-fi, what-ifs and parallel timelines, but it’s just a daydream. It’s dangerous to imagine if my mom’s cancer went into permanent remission instead of spreading. Getting lost, dreaming of the life we would still have together, how that would have changed who I am.”

Jared took this in solemnly.

Anna felt the grief behind her breastbone, and she wanted to cry, but everything was a little off right now. There was a foreign sort of disconnect between what she was feeling, and what she was thinking. Crying would have helped before, but this was different.

“I’ve come to terms with the fact that… this is the path of my life. I have choices, but I’m mostly just along for the ride.”

“You’re wiser than I am,” Jared said without self-pity. “I’m a simpler creature. I can’t let go. Of anything. So, I have to end it.”

“There are things I don’t get, but…” Anna’s next words, of reluctant acceptance, were interrupted.

There was a reaper in the window. Anna jolted in his hold and he let her go suddenly, as if the cause were him.

“I think he wants to tell you something,” she said quickly, knitting her hands together and trying not to see the silhouette in the window as a threat. In a moment, she was fine.

Nomak gave her an apologetic look before hurrying over and crouching before the cracked window.

They communed wordlessly, and the soft breathing between them sounded like whispers. It was eerie, for how much detail she gleaned from their faces. Her vision was edged by the steadily growing static of hunger, but the center was clearer than ever. She saw the moment its glassy, over-reflective eyes moved to her through the crack.

The reaper’s downturned, almost fishlike mouth opened. A low, steady hiss escaped it like breath leaving a corpse. Nomak snapped his fingers to regain its attention, but Anna was a distraction.

The figure hunched in the window before retreating without a sound.

“Did your worker bee find honey?” she asked, hating how her eyes kept returning to the empty window.

“I know where they’re going,” he said. He walked over, back straight, and towered with unintended ferocity. She held the doorframe for balance, thinking for an absurd moment that he might kiss her.

“Damaskinos’s soldiers are preparing for battle.”

“Battle? Jared, please… be careful,” she said.

He touched her shoulder but the gesture felt empty to her now.

“They’re no match for me, Anna. I’m not afraid. You don’t need to be, either.”

Though as he said that he seemed to think about it further. He reached behind his back, under his hoodie and when he removed his hand, there was a faint oily sheen.

“Uhm,” he said, staring at his own hand as if he just realized how animalistic the action had been. “This is… it’s meant to protect you. It’s...”

He was struggling and Anna had to laugh. He met her look and chuckled quietly.

“So fucking weird, I guess,” he finished, looking helpless. “But important.”

“It doesn’t bother me. We’re all just animals, down to the core,” she said, taking him by the wrist and pulling him against her.

The force of her back hitting the doorframe felt good and she sighed as his fingers pulled through her hair, thorough and less guarded about her tangles. She liked when his fingers snagged; the tiny pinpricks of pain in her scalp pulled on her belly in comfortably normal sort of way. Pleasantly distracting, and nothing else.

“Anything not weird at this point feels out of place,” she admitted, closing her eyes as he threaded her hair with his ‘queen bee’ pheromones. “You’ve been the only constant.”

He froze, then pushed himself back, in the universal hands up don’t-touch gesture, leaving her stranded, standing by herself.

She swayed for a moment. Jared looked like he was trying not to cry, but his mouth was hard. Her heartbeat was a muffled thrum in her ears, getting louder.

“What?” she asked, finding it hard to pull air into her mouth, every word sounding weaker than the last. “What is it?”

The room felt cold, and she realized that there was no heat in it; neither ambient nor from either of them.

“I don’t know if you can understand. I’m _not_ \- I can’t be that. For you. This…”

Jared floundered, gesturing between them.

Anna realized she hadn’t breathed and she hadn’t noticed, so she just kept staring and not breathing half-wondering if she really needed to.

“This was a mistake.”

“What was a mistake?”

“Making you think that I’m a good person,” he said. Anna kept searching his angular features for some tell that this was a joke. “I hoped to make it easier for you, but I think I’ve only made it worse. You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m to blame if I led you to false ends.”

Anna sputtered, then made an ugly noise of derision. Somehow it was worse to hear this in his eloquent words.

“'It's not you it's me?!' Are you serious right now?”

“I didn't want to upset you,” he said, but she could tell he was frozen in place where he stood, making no move away from or toward her to comfort her through what sounded like a high-school break-up.

“Upset? I’m just a little lost, here. Were you under the impression that I have romantic feelings for you?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and digging her nails into the backs of her arms. “I like you, Jared, but you don’t need to give me _the talk._ ”

“You still don’t understand.”

“Could you explain it to me, then? Maybe _before_ you die in glorious battle against your enemies? And I never see you again?”

It was Jared’s turn to be speechless. Anna brushed past him to perch on the edge of the bed. She hadn’t realized until now that none of the lights were on, yet she saw with dim clarity, everything.

“I forget, sometimes,” he said without turning toward her. He was shaking his head. “I forget that you aren’t like other-”

“Girls?” she interjected with shady irony.

“Humans,” he said, now turning to her. Static fizzed in her pulse and her stomach tightened hungrily.

“I am pretty typical, actually. Except I’m not human anymore,” she said, looking down to the floor. “I’ll need to come to terms with that. And you’re not like me. In a way, we have nothing in common, our lives have been completely different. Being around me is probably driving you crazy, too. I’m starting to understand what that might feel like, at least.”

With this, her attention was past him to the humming appliance in the next room.

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said, quietly. Anna shrugged.

“Physically? No, I believe you,” she said, though there was a mote of uncomfortable doubt deep in her gut. “Emotionally… it’s a little stickier. But I understand more than you think. What I _want_ … is just some sort of vampire guidebook or instruction manual or… like a training video.”

Nomak cracked a smirk and it felt like a victory even though Anna was trying to figure out how to relieve the tightness in her chest. She couldn’t stop chewing on her lip, then probing with her tongue to feel the soft flesh on the inside of her mouth knit back together.  

“You have stuff to do, I just want to make sure we’re square before you meet your destiny. It’s been a heavy few days, it would be good to clear the air.”

“That sounds good. Then, I do have something to say to you.”

He sat down beside her, tilting the mattress, and her, toward him.

“I feel it… something, for you,” he stuttered. “Too.”

Anna was taken aback. It felt good to give herself the space of a few breaths to absorb it and measure her reaction. 

“Congratulations, you are _not_ a Psychopath,” Anna said, clapping him on the shoulder.

Jared took it with good humor, but made no move toward her.

“I’m glad to hear that. Sometimes I wonder.”

Anna clasped her hands together on her lap.

“I appreciate your empathy for my plight. But it isn’t your fault, and you can’t fix it. It’s going to take me some time, but I’ll adjust.”

“You should leave the city."

“I will. I told... I told Dad I was going to see the Czech mountains and forests, and I owe it to him to at least experience them, for real. Maybe I’ll send him a postcard, when I’ve had more time to myself to think about what I’d say.”

Nomak nodded, staring into the night peeking between her bedroom window curtains. He’d donned his fingerless gloves again and she saw his fingers tapping absently.

“Give him a good memory he can hold onto,” Jared said.

Anna stared at him.

“I want that, too,” she said, waiting for him to understand. He finally realized that she was boring holes into the back of his smooth head and faced her. “With us. I want things to be okay before you leave.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Stop protecting me. Be honest with me. Let me be for a little while. I’ll be fine. It won’t happen right away, but it will happen. The thing is, there’s something I have to do before I can let it sink in and... I don’t want to do it in front of you.”

There was a question on his lips, before he followed her gaze to the fridge in the next room, and he closed his mouth and nodded.

“You should warm it first.”

She held her hand up, scoffing. “I’ll… figure that out, don’t worry. One thing at a time.”

Nomak smiled, and the heavy tension that seemed to have hung between them since that moment of vulnerability under the bridge evaporated. Gone, too, was the fragile spark of a more desirable connection between them, but it was ultimately for the best.

The bedside clock said 4:44 AM. Her first night as a vampire was almost halfway over, and she’d held it together. But the blood, and the surrender it symbolized, called to her.

“I’m going to be right here. Will you… if you can, please come back before dawn,” she said as Nomak stood. He pulled up his hood and shrugged his pelt coat over his shoulders.

“I can’t promise. But I swear I will try,” he said.

“That’s all I ask.”

He bent over her and without prolonging it, gave her a kiss on her forehead.

Anna locked the window behind him, and on second thought, unlatched it and opened it again. He was long gone by then, but she liked the small sensory injection of the outside world that was carried in on the cold, damp breeze. What did she have to fear anymore? Maybe other vampires. For right now, it was enough to have the window cracked open. She had no intention of leaving her apartment tonight. Perhaps even tomorrow night. She needed to think.

But solitude meant there were less distractions from her physical state. She felt the thirst in the back of her mouth, the insides of her throat sticking together like she’d been running in cold weather.

A warm, thick drink would be soothing. Like hot cocoa. Except she didn’t want sugar, the way it would linger afterward and sour on her tongue. She went into the bathroom and turned on the faucet.

She splashed her face, dried it, and let herself examine her reflection. More real than real. At least that myth wasn’t real. Not being able to see herself and have visual proof of her existence… she could see that driving her mad.

She peeled back her upper lip and tongued the tips of her canines. If she pressed hard enough, she could stab her tongue.

Dark, sluggish blood welled after less pressure than she expected. She closed her mouth, and within seconds, her tongue’s puncture wound healed.

The water gushed from the faucet, and Anna tried to bring herself to drink some, just to see if it would soothe her intensifying cottonmouth. The water looked thin somehow, though, and sharp. She turned off the faucet.

The ensuing silence carried noise from a neighboring apartment through the closed bathroom door. It was the soft, rhythmic sound of snoring. Her neighbors, usually quiet, were audible enough that they may as well have been snoring directly on the other side of the door.

Anna could picture them sleeping, deep in a state of unprotected rest. A comfortable, cozy rest, though, unlike the total blackout void that she experienced before waking to find Jared over her, followed by the instant transition from unknowingness to being confronted with the truth.

She hoped every waking wouldn’t be so harsh.

Anna didn’t realize she’d left the bathroom until she was on her bed, on all fours, facing the wall behind the headboard.

She felt as though she’d lost a few seconds. How did she get there? What was she doing?

She remembered now wanting to hear more, to see if she could tell more about her neighbors from the sound of their breathing. She’d left the bathroom, climbed onto her bed, just to listen.

To try and hear their hearts beating, maybe.

Images of red flowing rivers of briny life flashed behind her eyes. She was leaning closer, even now, to hold her ear against the wall.

Through thin plaster beckoned the answer, silken and savory, as it passed through her neighbor’s plump veins. Blood. That’s what she’d been thinking as she’d done it.

A boulder lodged in her stomach.

She tongued her teeth and a sudden fear struck her that pushed her away from the bedroom and into the kitchen. She didn’t remember making the choice to eavesdrop on her sleeping neighbors, it had just happened.

She remembered Nomak’s urge that she leave the city, and she wondered if it had been for her safety, or her sanity.

She opened the fridge door, and the only relief she would find from now on sat plump and tempting on the glass shelf, the bag’s plastic film glossy and taut with the coveted liquid inside, glistening crimson in the light of the interior bulb.

 

\------

**The Witching Hour. Beneath the Streets of Prague, District 3**

Nomak was troubled by Anna’s talk of ‘what-ifs.’ She was unlike him, with her belief in the concept of ‘choices’ and diverging paths.

All he knew was that his own history played out like a drama, following one inevitable turn after another, until… the fateful night in the subway, when a mortal girl had foolishly come to his rescue, and disrupted the flow.

That moment had plucked a thread that continued to vibrate in him. It was low, but constant. It was a feeling that didn’t have a name, and didn’t make sense to him. All he understood was the ravenous pack waiting for him beneath the streets by the nearby subway station.

What made real, visceral, scalding sense, was the anticipation of the hunt that radiated from their swarming, pallid bodies. It was infectious. His worker bees, she’d called him. In a way, she was right. And he’d made sure to render her all but invisible to them with every ability at his disposal, short of urinating on her doorstop, though the thought had occurred to him. The pheromones were enough.

Their hunger, and enthusiasm was infectious, and despite his disgust with them, he grinned at his hideous creations as they amassed around him in the darkness of a blocked-off work area.

More and more information spread to him from his eyes and ears.

Images, impressions, scents, layered and fit together, all pointed to one central location not far from Old Town. 

Incredible. On some level, he was curious to know more. But on a greater level, he was ready to make his move, and leave a crater in the vampire nation's collective consciousness for generations to come. 

He wanted to taste the helpless fear on their blood, and the moment they turned over control to him until there were none left. First things first.

He counted more than a dozen reapers with him now, felt the lingering scent of terror on the newest additions.

 _“We will feast tonight, children,”_ Nomak said to them in the mother tongue, almost cooing, wondering if they understood the words on some level.

He singled the first one out, the business man from the blood bank. This one had shown greater aptitude than the others over the last few days, as though it had gained a sort of intelligence.

He isolated it and gave it a set of unique instruction, speaking with growing fluency in his silent, layered language.

_Stay hidden. Kill prey that wanders near this building. Spread the seed and spread my will. Return only if there are many._

And, feeling strangely as though he were violating her trust, he imparted a chemical-pheromone impression of Anna and added an addendum, interlacing the messages.

_Maintain constant distance from Anna at all times._

As it scurried to obey him, dropping beneath the subway and into the distant rushing waters of the sewage system, he thought of her request that he stop protecting her with a sigh. If she ever found out, she would forgive him. But if leaving a sentry to stand guard over her meant the difference between her life and death, it was worth the potential betrayal she might feel.

Nomak kept to the dark places as the rest of his monstrous children followed him like a silent cavalcade of obedient ducklings.

They reached the cistern beneath the warehouse in the meatpacking district in very little time. 

Throbbing bass music pushed vampire-blood-laden air through the underground tunnel system like a heartbeat circulated vital fluids. The House of Pain was on Damaskinos territory, its destruction and the contamination of its occupants would send a clear message that the conflict was underway. 

There was something else, though. As he waited with his children beneath the metal grid floor of the club’s dance floor, swarmed with the vampires, he smelled a catalyst. Potent, dangerous.

The Daywalker. Blade was in _league_ with them! It was absurd and he had to appreciate the irony with acid spite.

His night just got more interesting.

 

\--------

**The House of Pain, 5:51 AM Tuesday Morning**

Nyssa had unknowingly led her people blindly into a trap, and she wouldn’t even be able to warn them.

The blood-heated hand gripped her face so that she saw him smiling.

 _“_ Kill me if you want, but you’re not making it out alive, Nomak,” she said quietly but with a fiery glare.

 _“So much confidence for someone who knows so little,”_ he replied in the ancient tongue with mocking admiration.

Nyssa didn’t intend to engage him in verbal sparring. She just needed to wait for an opening and move quickly to neutralize the threat. How had she been so blind that she hadn’t seen him waiting there? _Stall_ , she thought.

“You sound just like him, you know. Like your former master.”

Nomak’s lip twitched, a fractional slip of control that made her well-fed heart pump blood. It almost felt like fear.

“You both cannot see past your ambitions. But at least he wants to make things better for our people. What _do_ you want?” she demanded, in a low voice, tugging against the hand he had clamped around her wrist.

 _“You are a simple-minded beauty, Nyssa. You keep your eyes closed, as though it separates you. And who would judge you for willful ignorance? You only did as you were told. How many times did you stand silent and watch as they prodded me with needles? And hooked me to machines? Cut and sliced, and stole pieces of me to examine under lights and lenses?”_ he spoke with intelligence and subdued passion, and Nyssa was struck dumb. What was this creature?  _“How many times did you look me in the eyes from afar, recognize my pain, and then do nothing? I can count dozens.”_

Nomak persisted in speaking with their shared tongue, a language known only by those privileged vampires with access to ancient knowledge, and a wise teacher to instill it in them. Her father had been Nomak’s teacher. She knew it was meant as a further insult, meant to confuse her. Everything he said was a lie, meant to confuse her.

“Just… give yourself up now. Maybe my father will spare you a painful death. You’ll never win this,” she said in English. “If you want to destroy yourself, there are better ways. Don’t take the rest of our kind down with you.”

Nomak scoffed at her and Nyssa’s cheeks darkened with flushed blood. She hadn’t thought her statement through, and now she could see the mistake he would find in it.

“ _Our_ kind? If you mean vampire-kind. I haven’t been one of those in a _very_ long time. But, there is truth in your pretty words. In a way, we are of the same _kind_ , daughter of Damaskinos.”

Nyssa felt the faintest hint of trouble in the back of her mind. He was speaking in riddles. Toying with her. But she got the sense that there were things she didn't know. For some reason, he still held her hostage and spoke to her, instead of attacking.

In fact, he was unthreatened and unimpressed by her. It was a strange thing to experience. He must not have known about their secret weapon… the only one who might be a real challenge for Nomak.

Her stalling worked. The dusty red curtains opened into the small room and the stoic, unyielding visage of the Daywalker filled the gap. Her heart leaped in triumph as he took in the sight before him unwaveringly.

“Blade,” Nomak greeted with a smile.

Stunned, Nyssa realized too late that Nomak was well aware of Blade. He had perhaps even expected him.

She’d been bait all along.

 

\----

**Damaskinos Headquarters, between 5 AM and 9 AM Tuesday Morning**

Karel had his eyes on the monitors all night. He downed cup after cup of Ginger-honey tea with a splash of Bacardi, listening to every radio report from the infiltration of the House of Pain. It wasn’t his job to coordinate this, but he still delivered the occasional observation to HQ, whose intel was being fed directly into the ears of the Blood Pack.

Eli came to view the video surveillance once, showing more interest than the shriveled Overlord showed in most petty matters. Karel continued as he had been, speaking into his radio to mention a face in the dancing throng that was visible only briefly.

“You have always been loyal to my family,” Karel’s master said with rare affection in his brittle, accented rasp. “When this business is resolved, we will speak again of your reward.”

Karel’s expression didn’t move, except in a careful smile and bow of his head as Eli made his slow, graceful exit toward his private chambers.

“As you wish, Overlord,” Karel said to the retreating back, bowed and draped in gold-threaded damask so old that its country of origin no longer existed.

Inside, ambition sank its claws deep, grasping toward one end. At forty-six, he was on the verge of leaving his prime, he couldn’t afford to lose anymore time.

He didn’t see, or hear from Eli again, even as the mission devolved into a mindless slaughter. Report after report of crazed clubgoers flooding the streets, hopped up on some drug or other and climbing buildings painted an image of chaos. The numbers and headcount of the assailants kept changing, nothing was consistent. No one seemed to know anything.

He listened for one voice above all others. Blade was the priority, but Karel’s only concern was for Eli’s daughter. She was capable, a survivor to the bone. Even if the rest of her team fell to the enemy. Karel had no doubt she would escape the reaper onslaught alive.

When she did return, ragged and beaten, the beautious Nyssa was frantic, pacing the lobby until he ushered her into the back offices with sympathy in his gestures. She had underestimated the enemy, and Blade had saved her from Nomak’s clutches, but they had failed. Stalwart, Nyssa’s brow pursed as she fixed her tight bun.

Standing straight,she cut a a sophisticated figure amidst the bleak beaurocratic surroundings he considered home. She was a vision of perfection. A flower, frozen in the exact moment of peak potential, but hardened into an edge.

And she had a problem.

It was the perfect opportunity to come to her directly with some new information that might help her achieve her goals.

When she didn’t stop him, Eli removed the Czechian residency permit from an inside pocket of his silk-lined suit. He offered it to her, watching her gaze follow his hand, and he had to smother the pang of covetousness he felt being so near her, subject of her attention.

She accepted, careful not to touch him, and he clasped his hands behind his back, as was respectful to a creature of such standing.

“This may be nothing, but I thought it wise to trust your judgement, Miss Damaskinos. If by some chance, it offers information to your benefit, I felt that you should know.”

“Who is she?” she asked, her mind already on strategies for future missions. Karel may as well have not been there.

“A potential lead. A human who was with Parizska’s director at the time of his death. I believe she may still be alive. And I believe that she had help.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, mouth parted becomingly. Karel’s tongue darted just over his lip, then composed himself. He was so close.

“Jared Nomak,” he said, savoring every syllable. “I believe he rescued her from our Director’s… impassioned inclinations.”

Nyssa’s upper lip curled in disgust and in a way he was envious of the dead vampire that had inspired the expression. He might think she felt some sort of sympathy for the ill-fated young woman. A fascinating creature, she was. 

“Does my father know?” she asked, and the question was a sweet melody to his ears. It was sad, but when her warm brown eyes met his cold, eely stare, confiding in _him…_ it was the high point of his insignificant life serving her family thus far.

“I thought it best to come to you, first. He has so many troubles, so many things he must oversee. I don’t want to add to the noise, unless I know I have something worth delivering to him. I’m certain you share in this understanding with me. But if Nomak has a weakness…”

He trailed off, watching her think. She could break him with her little finger if she wanted to. She barely noticed him.

“Tomorrow night,” she said, coming to a decision. “I will look into this.”

Karel indulged in a smile.

“Thank you, Nyssa,” he said, toeing the line. She was unbothered by his use of her first name. After all, they were now co-conspirators.

“And you will come with me,” she added.

Karel had never before experienced the stomach-clenching combination of abject fear and intense longing. He smoothed his blond hair behind his ear. Field work? With _her_? He hoped he was right. He hadn’t expected this outcome, but he adjusted his projections accordingly.

“As you wish,” he said with a respectful nod, feeling quite optimistic.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in one day and did some quick edits. If any glaring errors show up, feel free to let me know.
> 
> Thanks for following along. If you're enjoying the continuation of this fic, feel free to leave kudos and comments letting me know, interest and encouragement can make all the difference sometimes <3


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